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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Norman McNulty: The Book of Romans

Norman McNulty

Romans 1:1-16 “Introduction to Romans”

Romans 1:17-32 “The Wrath of God”

Romans 2 “God Is No Respecter of Persons”

Romans 3:1-19 “Vindication of God”

Romans 3:20-31 “The Righteousness of God”

Romans 4 “The Faith of Abraham”

Romans 5: 1-12 “Peace With God”

Romans 5:13-21 “Born Sinners?”

Romans 6 “Dead to Sin”

Romans 6:15-23  “Servants to God and the 144,000”

Romans 7:1-6 “Married to the Wrong Man”

Romans 7:7-25  “Carnal, Wretched, and Laodicean”

Romans 8:1-4  “The Likeness of Sinful Flesh”

Romans 8:5-11 “Walking After the Spirit”

Romans 8:12-39  “The Final Class - Justification”

Why don't we go ahead and bow our heads for a word of prayer and we'll get started.

Father in heaven, we thank you for this Wednesday prayer meeting that we can come together and study your word.

We pray that you would bless us as we study from the book of Romans and may we learn things that will help us in our walk with you.

So this is Romans chapter 3, verses 20 through 31, that we are going to be looking at this evening.

As we've gone through the book of Romans, 1 thing that has been developed as we've continued through our study is that the wrath of God is poured out on the wicked.

And not only that, in chapter 2 we see that whether you are a Jew or a Gentile, if you are transgressing God's law, you receive his wrath.

And in chapter 3, we see that in the first several verses, we see the concept of the advantage of being God's chosen people.

You receive the oracles of God and through that mechanism, God works through a chosen people with the oracles to vindicate His name.

Romans 3 verse 4 talks about how God is justified in His sayings.

He overcomes when He judges, and that is being quoted from Psalms 51, and in that context, David says, Lord, you can be justified in saying I am righteous, and you can overcome when you are judged because you've blotted out my sins in the judgment.

So God can be just and the justifier of those who believe in him because he's going to blot out the sins of his righteous saints.

And that is involved in the vindication of God's character.

And then we saw the concept of sinful human flesh in verses 10 through 19.

And it's interesting that We didn't talk about this so much last week, but starting at verse 10 it says, there is none righteous, no not 1.

Verse 11 says, there's none that understand us.

So part of fallen flesh is that we have a tendency to not understand the things of God.

And then you go on and you see that their tongues have used deceit.

And the very contrast of that is seen in the 144, 000 who have no guile in their mouth.

And in verse 18 it says, there is no fear of God before their eyes.

Now realize, this is describing both the Jew and the Gentile.

Doesn't matter if you're born into God's chosen people or if you're a Gentile who's never heard of God.

This is the way human sinful flesh operates.

And yet the 144, 000 at the end of time who stand on Mount Zion with a lamb have no guile in their mouth and they have been prepared by the 3 angels' messages, which includes fear God, give glory to him, the hour of his judgment has come.

So, in a sense, or in essence, the 144, 000 have not allowed their sinful human flesh to keep them from being overcomers, completely purified of sin.

And so As we've looked at Romans chapter 3 and how God will be justified in His sayings, He'll be overcome when He, I keep saying this wrong, but He will overcome when He is judged, in the judgment.

And what we see here is God is vindicated in the judgment because he blots out the sins of his righteous people.

And in the 144, 000 what you see, you see a group of people who have no guile in their mouths, they're without fault before the throne of God.

They have been perfected by the 3 angels' messages, fear God, give glory to Him.

They keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

And so in the judgment, God is vindicated because here is a group of people who despite the weakness of sinful flesh, the natural tendency of sinful flesh, through the power of Christ, they have overcome.

And so in the judgment, God is justified because it is shown that the power of God can produce a group of people that even though they have weak, sinful flesh, don't have to give into that sinful flesh.

And as we go through what we're going to see in Romans 4, and we'll see it again in Romans 8, Abraham is an example of someone who had weak, sinful human flesh and yet he overcame.

And then in Romans 8 we say that we see that Jesus came in weak, sinful flesh and because he overcame his righteousness can be fulfilled in us.

So when Paul talks about God being justified or vindicated in Romans chapter 3, what he is basically saying is this.

There is going to come a time that no matter what any human being says, God will be vindicated.

And believe it or not, here's the odds that God's facing.

Human beings have a natural tendency to go against God.

They don't understand, their tongues are full of deceit, they don't have the fear of God.

And yet, God is so powerful, and this is what Paul is saying, God is so powerful I'm going to outline the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and through this Gospel God will take a group of people who were subject to the wrath of God, whether Jew or Gentile, because of their weak sinful flesh they have sinned against God and God is going to, through the power of the gospel, prepare them to have the characteristics of the 144, 000 and in that sense God will be justified in the sayings and overcome when he is judged.

And it's interesting when you get to verse 19 after you see the description of human flesh in verse 19 it says, now we know that what things whoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God.

Or another way of saying is subject to the judgment of God.

So because of human flesh, because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, all the world is subject to the judgment of God to receive his wrath.

And then Paul says in verse 20, therefore, because human beings, whether Jew or Gentile, do not follow after God, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in a sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Paul has proved that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God with the weakness of their sinful flesh being the key factor in that point.

If all of us have sinned, and we all have, no matter what good that we do the rest of our lives, if all there was was the law of God and the judgment and nothing else, all the world would be guilty before God.

So I do something that's sinful to my wife yesterday and then the rest of my life, in everything that I do, whether with her or anything else, I am 100% perfect, I'm still guilty before God in the judgment.

So there has to be something else in order for me to receive salvation than, obviously there's something else besides anything I can do in order for salvation to take place.

And yet in Romans chapter 2, and we've talked about this, it says in verse 13 that not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

So by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified, but only the doers of the law shall be justified.

So, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified, but only the doers of the law shall be justified.

So, you put those 2 things together and it immediately does away with the theology that says you can keep sinning as long as you want and you'll still be justified because that's not what Romans 2 teaches.

And yet the point that Paul makes in Romans 3 is because we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, all the obedience in the world that you can produce on your own will never justify you, because you've at least sinned once.

And so there has to be something outside of you that brings justification.

So once we get to verse 19 and verse 20, Paul has proven his point crystal clear.

Whether you are a Jew who knows the law of God and you know the 10 Commandments, or you are a Gentile who has never heard of the things of God, because of our human flesh, we have all chosen to sin, we've fallen short of God's glory, and therefore we are all guilty before God." Once Paul has established that point, he can now then talk about what the gospel of Jesus Christ is.

So if all we have is Romans chapter 1 through Romans chapter 3 verse 20, it's actually a fairly dismal picture because we have seen our true condition, we're all subject to the judgment of God.

Yeah, there's a lot of things that, you know, we can talk about with the vindication of God's character.

Obviously, the fact that the devil was in a perfect environment as a perfect created being and sinned, and yet God's last day people through the power of the gospel live in the worst time that's ever been, and are hit with the greatest temptations ever seen, and yet through the power of God are overcomers.

So it totally defeats the devil's arguments.

And there's a lot more that we could talk about with respect to that.

What we're going to do now is we're going to look specifically at what the gospel is.

And I probably should bring the diagram out again.

Diagrams are helpful to understanding things.

So verse 21 we see an immediate contrast to everything that Paul said.

In verse 20 he says, therefore, which sums up all that he has said.

And then verse 21 he draws a contrast where he says, but now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets.

So what we've seen so far is the wickedness or the sinfulness of man.

Now how perfect is the righteousness of God?

So we've seen the sinfulness of man, the wickedness of man, the weakness of sinful human flesh, now the righteousness of God is being manifested and it's been witnessed by the law and the prophets.

So Paul is making reference to the Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets.

And he goes on to explain more what this is.

Even the righteousness of God, so same thing again, righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference." So, verse 22 tells us something.

How is the righteousness of God manifested?

So, righteousness of God is manifested by the faith of Jesus Christ.

Now, So, when was the righteousness of God manifested?

And it's interesting in Romans 1, 1 of the very first things that Paul says is good news about the gospel is that it's concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.

So faith of Jesus Christ is a manifestation of the righteousness of God, and Jesus Christ was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.

And I'll just throw in a quick point here.

If you read the original translation, the original manuscripts say, the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ.

It's an objective interpretation of what the righteousness of God is.

Righteousness of God is the faith of Jesus Christ.

Most modern translations say it's by faith in Jesus Christ.

However, scholars admit that it's a subjective interpretation of what the passage actually says.

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Norman McNulty: The Book of Romans

Romans 3:20-31 “The Righteousness of God”

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