ROMANS 3:24-25 – THE VOCABULARY OF RIGHTEOUSSNESS
Vocabulary – the body of words used in a particular language.
- words used on a particular occasion or in a particular sphere. “the vocabulary of law”
- the body of words known to an individual person. “he had a wide vocabulary” (Oxford Languages – As found on Google)
Sometimes we have a problem with words because they are not in our vocabulary. Doctors, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, architects, and even ministers use a different set of words that we don’t always understand.
God uses vocabulary, or words, to express Himself. That is why we have the Bible. In different books of the Bible God talks about different subjects and uses specific vocabulary words.
One of the great themes of the Book of Romans is God’s Righteousness, and how we, as unrighteous sinners, can become righteous in God’s eyes. Romans 1:16-17
When we say God is righteous, we mean God is always right. He has the right thoughts, the right actions, the right motives. As God, He is without sin. He is just!
Romans 3:24-25 contains some great vocabulary words which help us understand God’s righteousness, and how we can be right with him. I would like us to define those words, so you can understand the key message of the Book of Romans, and thus understand how you can be a participant in God’s righteousness.
The first major portion of Romans, going from chapter 1, verse 18 through chapter 3 and verse 20, discusses man’s guilt before God. Every person is guilty before God. No one is righteous before God. Nobody has ever earned entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. Romans 3:19-23
Now we come to Romans 3:24-25 – Read
We will talk about 5 vocabulary words in this passage:
JUSTIFICATION
GRACE
REDEMPTION
PROPITIATION
FAITH
We want to especially center in on three of these five words.
As we look back on the original meanings of these words, we realize that in our minds we need to travel to three places to better understand their meanings. In a sense this morning, we need to go “on tour”.
FOR THE WORD JUSTIFICATION WE MUST VISIT THE COURTROOM.
FOR THE WORD REDEMPTION WE MUST VISIT THE SLAVE MARKET.
FOR THE WORD PROPITIATION, WE MUST VISIT THE TEMPLE.
I got the original thought for this message from Richard DeHann, who briefly touched on the idea of the three places to visit in his book, The World on Trial. Richard W. DeHann, The World on Trial, Studies in the Book of Romans (Grand Rapids Michigan, Zondervan Publishers, 1970) pp. 35-37
JUSTIFICATION – THE COURTROOM
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
We enter the courtroom to view someone on trial.
At the end of the trial the judge will do one of two things.
He will either condemn the person, declare him guilty as charged, or he will justify the person, declare him righteous, or not guilty. Another word we might use is acquittal.
The word justify means to declare righteous.
Now think with me for a moment. Paul has just written a long treatise on how every person is positively and absolutely guilty before God! Now he is talking about declaring some of those guilty people as righteous. If they are righteous, they will be allowed to enter God’s Heaven!
How can God condemn the world and then acquit some?
There is a basis for God’s justification or declaring some righteous. Romans 5:6-9
God declares us righteous based on the blood sacrifice for sin made by His Son!
Now, not everyone is declared righteous by the shed blood of Christ, although anyone and everyone can be! Justification, being declared righteous is on the basis of the blood of Christ, but also requires our faith in Christ. Romans 5:1
Faith – Forsaking All I Trust Him!
God can declare us righteous because of what His Son has done. Justification, being declared righteous, is a wonderful thing! We have been acquitted!
Notice in our text that it says that we are justified freely.
What does that mean? When something is free it is without cost to you. It may cost someone else something, but to you it is free. If you are a true Christian, you have been declared righteous without cost to you. It cost God the death of his Son and the suffering of the His Son for our sakes, but you it cost nothing.
And notice in our text another great word. We are justified freely by his grace! What is grace? Grace is God giving me what I don’t deserve! Grace is God pouring out His love upon me, not because I deserve it, but because God has chosen to do so. Our salvation is by grace!
FOR THE WORD JUSTIFICATION WE MUST VISIT THE COURTROOM.
REDEMPTION – SLAVE MARKET.
Romans 3:24 – Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Slavery in America was a terrible thing. Although we sadly have way too much prejudice based on ethnicity, we do not have slave markets in our country today.
In the day that this Epistle to the Romans was written there were many slaves, and they did have slave markets.
The Word redemption carries the idea of buying a slave at the slave market and setting him free! 1 Peter 1:18-19
When the purchase is made, the person is set free and made a citizen of Heaven.
FOR THE WORD JUSTIFICATION WE MUST VISIT THE COURTROOM.
FOR THE WORD REDEMPTION WE MUST VISIT THE SLAVE MARKET.
PROPITIATION – THE TEMPLE
Romans 3:25 – Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood…
James Montgomery Boice says that the word “propitiation” comes from the world of ancient religion. “It signifies what the worshiper does when he or she presents a sacrifice to a deity. It is an ‘atoning sacrifice,’ an act by which the wrath of the offended deity is appeased or turned aside.” James Montgomery Boice, Romans – Volume 1 – Justification by Faith – Romans 1-4 (Grand Rapids MI, Baker Book House, 1991)
At the Jewish temple was the Ark of the Covenant, a gold covered box that sat in the “holy of holies” in the temple. This was the most sacred part of the temple, and the high priest only came into this place once a year. Inside the box were the tablets that had the Ten Commandments written on them.
On top of the Ark was a cover called the Mercy Seat. It had two statues of cherubim, or angels sitting on either end of the Mercy Seat. According to Boice, “In a symbolic way, God was imagined to dwell above the Ark, over or between the outstretched wings of the cherubim.”
As God looked down on the Ark, what did He see?
He saw the His Ten Commandments, which were in the Ark, which had been broken by His people Israel. Breaking the laws of God required the judgment of God.
Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest came in to the Holy of Holies and sprinkled blood on the mercy seat. So then when God then looked down from Heaven before His eyes got to the broken ten commandments they came upon the blood of an innocent victim, a sacrifice for sin. God was appeased.
This animal sacrifice pointed to the day when Jesus Christ would go to the cross. His blood was sprinkled for our sins, and God is propitiated, appeased, or satisfied. His blood is the satisfaction, the appeasement for our sins!
There is one more word we need to notice a word here that we mentioned earlier. The word is “faith”. Notice please that God’s anger for our sins is appeased by faith or trust in Jesus’ blood.
The sacrifice has been made, but just as the priest applied the blood of the sacrificial animal to the mercy seat by faith, we must also apply the blood of Christ to our sins by faith.
When we trust Christ by faith in his shed blood, God is appeased, satisfied, propitiated!
My friend, your pardon has been secured through the shed blood of Christ. But, you must accept it. If you ignore it or refuse it, it is not yours. Will you accept the pardon by putting your faith in Christ? Without the pardon you will pay for your own sins for all eternity.
FOR THE WORD JUSTIFICATION WE MUST VISIT THE COURTROOM.
FOR THE WORD REDEMPTION WE MUST VISIT THE SLAVE MARKET.
FOR THE WORD PROPITIATION, WE MUST VISIT THE TEMPLE.
