Several years ago, I went to school to learn how to shoe horses. Part of learning the art of farrier work is learning how to forge horseshoes from a piece of bar stock, a plain piece of straight steel. Some math is involved in determining how much steel you use, then use a forge to heat the metal and shape the shoe. Then you forge a groove in the bottom of the shoe so when you drive the nails in, they sit flush with the bottom of the shoe, and then you have to punch the holes in the shoe for the nails, all the while maintaining the shoe’s shape.
I was awfully proud of myself the first time I forged a shoe. That is a good-looking shoe. I’m pretty good at this, I thought. I looked at my other classmates and the shoes they were forging, and I was feeling good about my work. However, as we worked on our shoes, our instructor also forged a shoe. About the time I was feeling pretty good about my work, my instructor brought over the shoe he was working on. His shoe was a piece of art. It was beautiful. My shoe looked like a child had made it compared to his work. My shoe didn’t even compare to his shoe.
We tend to compare ourselves to other people. Either, we will look at someone and say, I’m glad I’m not as bad as that guy. Compared to that person, I’m pretty good. Or, we will do the opposite and look at someone and wonder why we are having such a hard time. Why do I just seem to get it wrong all the time, but that person over there seems to be getting it right all the time? We play this comparison game where we look at ourselves and then look at other people and judge ourselves based on what we see in others.
The problem with that, Paul will tell us, is that you are judging yourself by the wrong standard when you compare yourself to others. The only standard we ought to care about, the only standard that matters, is God. When God is our standard, it doesn’t matter how good or bad you are; none of us measure up to God.
In the Sermon on the Mount in Matt 5, Jesus says we must be perfect like our Heavenly Father is perfect. Jesus isn’t simply raising the standard there; he isn’t saying you must work a little harder. Jesus is saying that our Heavenly Father is perfect, and that is what is required of us. But we cannot, in and of ourselves, reach that standard. We simply cannot.
That is why Paul tells us we all need a way, outside of ourselves, to have God’s perfection and righteousness applied to our lives. None of us can do that on our own.
That’s where we left off last week when discussing the Universality of Sin. The only way to deal with the reality that we are all under sin is to be justified outside of what we do. Because we can never do enough, we are all guilty of sin, no matter how you think you stack up to the person beside you.
Rom 3:20-21 (CSB)—For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets.
Paul says no one will be justified based on what they do.
Last week, we defined what it means to be justified:
Justification means being declared righteous—as though we never sinned at all.
Here, Paul says justification is apart from the law. If you’re trying to connect with God based on your goodness or devotion, your consistency or Bible study, your do’s and don’ts—you’ll never be justified. The law cannot justify you; works cannot justify you. It can only bring you to the realization that you are a sinner in need of a Savior.
When we try to be perfect in everything we do, we only realize how imperfect we are. This is the message that the law and all of the prophets in the past have been trying to tell us.
The following three verses will show us the heart of the gospel message. Remember, gospel means “good news.” Paul has laid out the black background, and against that background, he will show us the beauty of the good news.
Rom 3:22 (CSB)—The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe, since there is no distinction.
Our justification (or being made righteous) is through faith in Jesus Christ. Not simply by a belief in God generally but in Jesus Christ personally. That is why anyone who says there are many ways to God or all roads lead to heaven is feeding you false information. That is not what the Bible says. James, the brother of Jesus, said that even the demons believe in God but are not saved.
It’s not enough to say, “I believe in God and go to church and do good things.” No, we must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ because the source of our justification is in the Person and work of Jesus.
Notice that Paul says through faith in Jesus. It isn’t the quality of our faith that saves us; it is Jesus and the work he did on the cross that saves us. Faith, or belief, is the vehicle or the bridge that gets us to Jesus. Faith, or belief, is the thing that links us to what Jesus did for us.
2 Cor 5:21 (CSB)—He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Paul does not say you will be justified if you have enough faith. If that were the case, then justification would depend upon our quantity of faith rather than the object of faith, Jesus. If justification depended upon a certain quantity of faith, you would always ask yourself how much faith is enough. Again, that is not what Paul is saying here.
This is where Christianity and the rest of the world’s religions, part company. Every other religion will say it takes more than faith in Christ to be justified.
These are the verses that motivated Martin Luther to nail his 95 theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, 1517.
Catholics will tell you that it is through faith plus works that save or justify you; it is not faith alone.
But that is not what Paul says here!
Paul is abundantly clear throughout the book of Romans that justification is through faith alone in Jesus.
To all who believe, since there is no distinction, It doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or Gentile, young or old, black, brown, or white, there is only one way to find salvation. It’s not what you’ve done or who you are, but we are declared righteous through faith in Jesus.
Rom 3:23-24 (CSB)—For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Again, Paul reminds us that we all need this because we are all under sin. You might think, “I’m doing pretty well compared to my neighbor.” But you’re comparing yourself to the wrong person. The comparison is not between you and your neighbor or between you and me. The comparison is between you and the holiness and perfection, the glory of God. When we make that comparison, we all fall short.
But we are justified freely; it is not something we are owed because we have earned it. Justification through faith in Jesus is freely given like a gift is freely given.
The idea that justification would be given freely was radical to the Jews and Romans in Paul’s day. Their way of life involved aquitting the innocent but condemning the guilty. The idea that one could be guilty but be justified was unthinkable.
Paul says that payment for the price of our sin is freely given by God’s grace.
Grace is unmerited favor, receiving something that isn’t deserved or earned.
Paul says it is by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. What does he mean by that?
The Jews and Greeks would know precisely what Paul meant.
In the center of every Greek city was the agora—the place of redemption—where buying and selling took place. Specifically, although not exclusively, this was the place where slaves were bought and sold.
The Greek word for the act of redemption or purchasing is agorazo, but agorazo is not the word used in this verse.
There’s a second word for redemption that the Jews and Greeks would understand: exagorazo, or “the act of purchasing or redeeming never to return.” You see, often, a man would buy a slave, use him for a season of harvesting or cultivating, and then return him to be sold again. Exagorazo was the opposite of this practice. It meant permanent possession. But exagorazo isn’t the word used in this verse.
Apolutrosis, the third Greek word for redemption. This is the word used in this verse. Apolutrosis speaks of a man going into the agora to purchase a slave for the purpose of setting him free totally and completely—never to be a slave again.
For us, redemption is agorazo—for we have been purchased by the Lord.
It’s exagorazo—because we’ll never be sold again.
But even more than that, it’s apolutrosis—because we were purchased to be set free.
That is why Jesus says this to His disciples:
Jn 15:15 (CSB)—I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father.
Paul says that redemption is in Christ. It is because of Christ.
If God overlooked the world’s sins and did not condemn them, He would be as unrighteous as the guilty. But what the world did not count on was a God who was both just and a justifier of the guilty. No one goes free without the penalty being paid. It is just that no one imagined that the judge would also pay the price.
God’s holiness demands that sin be punished – but God’s love has provided the way of redemption through Christ.
—Billy Graham
Imagine this scenario:
A young man is arrested for reckless driving. He is caught in the act, handcuffed, and taken to jail. He is then taken before a judge to plead his case. The judge, however, is the young man’s father. The judge looks at his son, knowing he must uphold the law and pass sentence without favoritism. The judge says, how do you plead? The young man says, guilty. The judge then says the penalty for reckless driving is $10,000 or 30 days in jail. The young man tells the judge, “Dad, you know I don’t have $10,000.” The judge then steps off the bench, takes off his robe, and says, “I know, son.” He pulls out his checkbook to pay the fine that his son cannot pay.
The price for our sin was paid when Jesus allowed himself to be sacrificed on the cross. The price was the broken body and shed blood of Jesus. It was a price we could never pay on our own. We can never pay for our sin no matter how good we are.
The cost of redemption cannot be overstated. The wonders of grace cannot be overemphasized. Christ took the hell He didn’t deserve so we could have the heaven we don’t deserve.
—Randy Alcorn
This is the good news! This is the gospel message. What is the one thing God wants from you? He wants you. He wants a relationship with you, but guilt stands in the way of that relationship. We are law-breakers, and we have earned a sentence for our sin. The gospel addresses the problem of sin and the gap between us and our creator.
Paul, in these three verses, has encapsulated the message of the entire Bible.
We are all guilty of sin. Because of our guilt, we deserve eternal punishment. But God has gifted us a way to be rescued from our punishment. When we believe that Jesus is God’s Son, that He died on the cross and rose three days later from the dead, we are forever released from the power and the penalty of our sins and are adopted as God’s children.
This is the good news! This is the message of the gospel.
In verses 27-30, Paul points out that because justification occurs apart from the law, we have nothing to boast about.
To end this section, Paul anticipates another question from his readers:
Rom 3:31 (CSB)—Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
In other words, do we now ignore the law because we have faith in Christ? Paul says no. In fact, following Christ in faith is fulfilling the law. It fulfills the purpose of the law.
Gal 3:24 (CSB)—The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith.
Because the purpose of the law, according to Galatians 3:24, is to bring us to Christ. Therefore, belief in Christ accomplishes the very purpose for which the law was given.
Does that mean we can ignore the law? Come back and see what Paul has to say about that.
In what area of your life do you need to know God’s grace?
Chris Hankel 
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