Twin City church of Christ Blog
“July 23, 2024 - A New Way to Be Right”
Categories: 2024 Reading DevotionalsA New Way to Be Right
Reading: Romans 3:21-31
Since man has failed to respond to God’s message in creation and the Law, we need a new way to be right. “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe”(Rom 3:21-22). God has forged a new path for us to be right outside the Law. We are no longer saved by living perfectly under God’s law, but through faith. Just as sin is universal (Rom 3:9), so this new way is available to all people who are willing to believe in Jesus (Rom 3:22-23). We “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith”(Rom 3:24-25). Paul stresses that we do not earn this status by our good works; it is a gift. The sacrifice of Jesus secures something that we could never achieve on our own. Meanwhile God has found a way to be “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus”(Rom 3:26). He takes sin seriously enough to punish it (“just”) while loving us enough to rescue us from our condemnation (“the justifier”). These are breathtaking thoughts.
Since we have merely received a gift, Paul argues that our “boasting” is “excluded”(Rom 3:27). “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law”(Rom 3:28). Boasting implies that we have earned our standing before God and can brag about our works. This is not the way of Jesus because we are only right because of his sacrifice and mercy. This new way to be right simultaneously exalts us and humiliates us; we become children of God but it has nothing to do with our own goodness.
Everything has changed in Jesus. The ignorance of the Gentiles has been expelled and they can be brought to God when they put faith in Jesus. The Law of Moses, which only condemned those who lived under it and pointed them forward to Jesus, yields to this better way. We lower ourselves before God and receive his goodness. We now trust and obey Jesus, not ourselves.
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One Thing to Think About: What is the appropriate way to receive a gift?
One Thing to Pray For: Praise to God for his grace
