Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans.  Tonight is study #42 in Romans 3,  and we will read Romans 3:24-26:

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

I will stop reading there.  Verse 24 went along with the previous verses, so let us start in Romans 3:23-24:

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

That is, all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.  How can anyone be saved?  How can anyone be justified and righteous in God’s sight?  It is accomplished as it says: “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”  So we are justified by His grace.

Before we get into that, we should not overlook the word “freely.”  This word translated as “freely” is the same word that is found in Matthew 10:8:

Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.

Each one of those examples identifies spiritually with bringing the Gospel to those that are spiritually sick; those  that are spiritually unclean; those that are spiritually dead, under the power of Satan and the devils.  And the Gospel can heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the spiritually dead, and cast out Satan, and bring the marvelous grace of God’s salvation.  Then after stating these things, it says at the end of Matthew 10:8:

… freely ye have received, freely give.

What have we freely received?  Let us go back to Romans 3:24:

Being justified freely by his grace…

It is the mercy of God toward us that He has granted us, just as King Ahasuerus stretched forth his sceptre toward Esther when Ester had been subject to death for entering into the king’s chambers without being called.  And yet he granted her grace.  She found grace in his sight, and he extended the sceptre.  So too, God has extended His sceptre of grace to all his elect – to you, to me, and to all who are truly chosen by Him – through the application of the shed blood of Christ through the hearing of His Word.  We have been justified freely.  That is, “freely ye have received, freely give.”  It is a Gospel with “no charge.”  That is what we read in Isaiah 55:1:

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

That means it is free.  God likens Himself to a merchantman selling his wares, but He does not charge anything.  It is all free.  Of course this is why EBible Fellowship does not charge people for anything.  If we have something, we will give it freely, whether it is a booklet or a tract.  We do not wish to charge anyone because we have not been charged.  We have not made payment of any kind for the salvation that the Lord has blessed us with, so we are to share the truth of the Word of God in its proper time and season, and to give freely of the Gospel to all.  In the day of salvation, God also justified all the elect freely, and it was done by His grace.

You know, when we think of faith and salvation, God joins grace and faith together in Ephesians 2:8:

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

What is not of ourselves?  Is it the grace, or the faith?  Actually, it is both.  Both belong to God.  It is God’s grace and God’s faith that saves: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves…
It is not your faith, or your grace.  It is Christ’s faith and Christ’s grace, as it said in Romans 3:24: “Being justified freely by his grace…”

In Romans 5, we read in Romans 5:9:

Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

It is Christ’s grace, and it is Christ’s blood.   I would not say that anyone has done this, but I have not heard of anyone saying this, and it would certainly be rare if someone claimed, “It is not actually Christ’s grace, but it is my grace.  It is not actually Christ’s blood, but it is my blood.”  Those kinds of claims are not normally made because it is understood that grace belongs to God – you cannot have grace upon yourself.  Also, it is Christ’s blood that was shed, and not your own blood, so you cannot claim the blood that justifies is your blood.  Of course it is understood that it is the grace of Christ, which is His grace.

By the way, when we read in Romans 3:24, “Being justified freely by his grace,”  the pronoun “his” is in the “genitive,” meaning it is “of him.”  That is literally how it is written in the Greek: being justified freely by (of him)) grace,” the grace belonging to Him.  That is what the genitive case does, so why did not the theologians do that here, and say, “This is an instrumental genitive, and it should be translated as ‘in,’ being justified freely by…”  Well, it does not really make sense to try to do it that way.  But they do not say a word about that because it is not to their benefit.  It is only when we read Galatians 2:16….and why do we not turn over there?  The Lord tells us in Galatians 2:16:

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ…

It is the “genitive.”  It is just like where it says, “of him,” which is His grace.  And here, it is “of Jesus Christ,” and it is the faith that is of Jesus Christ.  The faith belongs to Him.  It is of Him, and that is what justifies us.  It is His faith, which would be another way of putting it.  The faith of Jesus Christ is His faith.  And that would fit quite well with His grace, and His blood.  Actually, God does tell us that we are justified by His faith, in Romans 4:4-5:

Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

It is stated, but it is misapplied, being incorrectly applied to Abraham.  No, that cannot be.  It is referring to Christ’s faith, the faith that saves: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves..”  And this includes Abraham.  It is of God.  It is of Christ because Christ is God. 

We have covered that pretty well, so let us move on in Romans 3:24:

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

We find this word “redemption” is also used in Ephesians 1 in that wonderful passage that gives us a glimpse into the counsel of the Godhead in eternity past.  We read in Ephesians 1:4-7:

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, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

Remember that reference to being justified by His blood in Romans 5:9, just as we are justified by His grace in Romans 3:4.  And now we read that we have “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.”   Salvation is of the Lord.  It belongs to Him.  He does all the work, including the work of faith, and any other work that was involved in saving those He had predestinated to save.  God has done it.  To God be the glory, who is the perfect standard of holiness, righteousness, and justice.  He Himself has upheld these things because He is the only one that could do it because we are rebels and spiritually dead, and we had to be acted upon as God granted us the forgiveness of sins and washed them all away.  This is the redemption that is in Christ Jesus through His blood, which means the life that He gave.  “The life is in the blood.”  And Christ shed His blood and gave His life at the point of the foundation of the world, thereby satisfying the Law’s demand for the death of the sinner.  Christ died in our stead, thereby redeeming us, and granting us forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.  There was a tremendous amount of sin, a mountain of iniquity that was washed away and covered by the precious blood of the Lamb.

Going back to Romans 3:24, we read of the “redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” which had to do with His blood, and then it goes on to say in Romans 3:35:

Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

So Christ Jesus was set forth to be a propitiation.  The word “set forth” can also be translated as “purpose,” so it was the purpose, or will, of God that Christ Jesus was presented as a “propitiation through faith in his blood.”  This word “propitiation” is only found one other time in the New Testament, and that is in Hebrews 9:1-7:

Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread; which is called the sanctuary. And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all; Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly. Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people:

You may have wondered which word is the word translated as “propitiation” because we did not read any word that sounded even remotely like it.  Well, the Greek word for “propitiation” is the word translated as “mercyseat,” in verse 5.    Inside the Holiest of all was the ark of the covenant, and God described the contents, including the tables of the covenant, which is the Law of God.  Then it says, “And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat,”  So the cherubims were above the mercyseat, and the mercyseat covered the ark.  And the high priest of Israel would enter into the Holy of holies once a year with the blood of the sacrificial animal, and he would sprinkle it over the mercyseat.  The reason for this is because the mercyseat was covering the ark, and within the ark was the Ten Commandments, the stones of the covenant.  And the number “10” points to the completeness of whatever is in view, which are the commandments, or the Law of God.  It is the complete Law of God. 

Remember that we read in Romans 3 that God gave the Law to “multiply iniquity” and bring about the knowledge of man’s sin, and the reason for the Law was to convince men of their sinfulness, and Christ Jesus was the end of the law for righteousness, as we read in Romans 10.  So the Law would instruct us as a schoolmaster and lead us to Christ.  The Law taught us that we are dirty, rotten sinners, and we have offended by transgressing and breaking the Law.  We are therefore guilty, and we are not righteous.  We are not good.  We are not just.  And yet we have a Saviour.  We cannot attain to that perfect standard of God’s glory, His holy righteousness.  We needed someone to pay for our sins, so it directed us to the only One who could, the Lord Jesus Christ, the “end of the law.”  He is like the serpent in the wilderness which was help up.  It was the Law that would bite us and sentence us to death, and we would surely die, but it was that same Law, the Word, that showed us our Saviour, the Lord Jesus, and we must look to Him.  He is the end of the Law. 

So the ark of the covenant had the Law book, but there is another element that is not evident, and we are told of the Law that is an instruction, in Galatians 4:3-5:

Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

We were under the Law, and that means it is as though the ark of the covenant is over us, condemning us.  Remember the cherubim in the Garden of Eden that had the flaming sword, guarding the way to the Tree of Life so none could go that way.  And that indicates the wrath of God.   The cherubim are picturing God as the Judge, looking angrily down at mankind that is underneath the Law, and condemned by the Law.  And they will surely perish because they transgress the Law of God.  They cannot make it to the Tree of Life, who is Christ.  They cannot enter into the kingdom of God and live forever because the Law’s condemnation is weighing upon them, and they cannot get out from underneath it.  So God had a “propitiation,” and that was His plan of salvation, and the Lord Jesus Christ is that propitiation.  He is the mercyseat, and it is also His blood that is shed, and sprinkled upon the mercyseat, covering over the Law.  Now man, who was under the Law, is under the sprinkled blood, the blood of Christ that has covered all the iniquity (of His people), and God is appeased, and the Law of God has no more judgment, wrath, or condemnation toward all that were under it.  This does not apply to all mankind, but only to the elect because Christ shed His blood only for them.