Romans Chapter 3 Verses 19 - 20

• So by now the Jews are in upheaval.  Paul has broken down how the unrighteous heathen has a problem and that same problem is shared by the self-righteous Jew.  And right before he gets into what true righteousness is, how a man truly can be restored to a right relationship with God the Father…he delivers the knockout punch.
• “You see my friends,” Paul would say, “the law, the ten commandments, the Mishna, the hundreds of particular do’s and don’ts that the Jews had extrapolated from the ten commandments and the Torah, (the first Five Books of the Bible, or the Books of Moses), you’re not made right by them, you’re made wrong by them!”
• Made wrong?  Yea, made wrong and not only the contemporary to Paul Othrodox Jew that sought to follow the law but also contemporary to us religious…anyone who has established a false idea, a false righteousness based upon works.  Well how’s that?  I thought that if you lived your life well, were gracious to the poor, went to church and said your prayers before bed…you know stayed out of trouble and really tried to do well…I thought that is good.  Well it is!  There is certainly value in all of those things in that God is able to bring about His purpose and plan for your life.  Through those types of things God orchestrates our moments to bless us and reveal more of Himself to us.
• I mean if all you’re ever doing has been to ignore the poor and not attend church and not ever acknowledge God in prayer then how is God going to bring blessings in your life such as the pure tears of a hurting person as they eat the first meal they’ve had in weeks…or the shear priviledge of fellowshipping with other believers in church…He’s not…you’re boxing Him out by your lifestyle, you see…and so those things are good, they are wonderful, they are essential in your life as you seek the Lord…but those things don’t wash your sins away…that’s the issue.  Following the law was never the purpose of the law and that is the heart of what Paul is saying here to us…
• In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus made it clear that we may have the external regulations down pat but sin remains within us.  Sin is not what we do…sin is who we are.  Man is fallen and estranged from God and therefore the law was never to make a person right, that would actually trample the righteousness of Jesus under foot…don’t need Him…but rather the law was to reveal to us, all of us, that no matter our religiousity, no matter our pure intentions, no matter our self-generated and self-perceived goodness…we can’t do it.  We can’t keep it.  We all fall short and its interesting here Paul uses the phrase, “that the world may become guilty.”
• Become?  Better stated, that all eyes would be opened…opened to what?  A specific and unique Greek word.  Another one here in the Book of Romans that you will not find elsewhere in the entire Bible.  It’s the word hypdikos (paa-di-kas).  It literally means “one who has lost their suit.”  We all as one have been weighed, we have been measured and we have been found wanting…the writing is on the wall man…what wall?  The wall of our hearts.  We all know don’t we…that we’re sinners and we fall short of perfection…
• The law of what to do and what not to do would have God chasing us around all of the time like a wild dog off of a leach…I just witnessed this with the family a few days ago…we came around the corner on a street and we see this dog just running for it with a grown man sprinting after it yelling “Fifi nooooooo” as it got closer to the road that we were on…that is not God’s desire for His children!  That is what religion teaches though.  Paul would say to the Jew, that is what following the law will get you, a tight leash…but instead, His desire from the very beginning has been for us to not be in bondage to the law but alive unto Him!
• But we have a problem don’t we?  hypdikos (paa-di-kas).  We know we have fallen short of perfection, we all even though we strive to be good, we strive to do well, we all still make mistakes and we all still have the disease of sin within us…
• Well the Jew knew it too but they made their boast in circumcision, they boasted in the external keeping of the law…they were so meticulous and calculated in all that they did, in every move they made…to the point that they had fallen into self deception that fooled them into believing that when they stood before God they could demand entrance into heaven based on their own righteousness…Paul pretty much pukes here and he says, “shut up!”  He does!  It’s right there in verse 19, the translators have just been PC…he says, “pas stoma phrasso,” and the translators tell us that means “every mouth stopped,” but what he’s saying here is “shut yo mouth!” 
• Why?  Because that insults the very goodness and love and grace of the Father that has saved him and us you see.  That is to stand in front of the righteous King, and reject the loss of His Son for the sake of your own merit.  No no no, I’d advise you to, well just as Paul said here, shut your mouth... 
• And that is the type of righteous indignation that Paul expresses elsewhere in his epistles of those who would take suit even against eachother.  Those that would be offended by a brother or a sister in Christ and then when offense is not considered in light of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, how you yourself are in need of much much much grace…you know what happens?  Sin.  And sin brings division, strife, death, regret and loss.  Not innocence, sin never brings innocence.  Accusation never brings innocence.  It only always brings…guilt!  Maybe not immediately, but it’s a coming…
• You’re all upset at someone, maybe they corrected you (that’s typically how folks in a church get offended), maybe they didn’t open the door for you, maybe they sat in your seat (oh the horror!), do you think that bitterness you’re allowing will bring about innocence and life?  You’ve forgotten bro, you’ve forgotten ‘lil sister that we are all sinners and that Christ showed us what it is to honor Him in that He laid down His life for His friends.  You’re in sin…and death is at the door man.  Time to love hard, serve for real, and let the Spirit live through you…let the Spirit lead you…lead you right on into victory!
• That’s Paul’s plea here…they’re not guilty alone you see…they are godless heathens but you jews, you religious elite are self-righteous mirror worshippers!  Circumcision, the law…its all good…but you’re not! 
• And then practical Paul delivers the smelling salts…

Romans Chapter 3 Verses 21 – 23 (and into verse 24)

• The Jew, the heathen, the Muslim, the Mormon, the Budhist, the deist, Paul says to all and on all…righteousness is within reach…justification has arrived but quit looking to the law, Paul would say to his Jewish brethren…quit looking to a man, Paul would say to the Muslim and to the Mormon and to the Budhist…look somewhere he would say to the heathen!  And that somewhere, is a Someone…Paul delivers the answer to the fret of all mankind right here…righteousness of God, peace with God, justification and redemption…is apart from the law > all laws > and is through faith in Jesus Christ!
• Justification man…just-as-if-I-never-sinned.  No other name under heaven by which man must be saved.  Why?  No other name under heaven has ever even claimed to have that power!  Judaism, goods outweigh the bads…Islam, goods outweigh the bads…Mormonism, keep to the doctrine and covenants, Catholocism, faith AND good works…all of them!  Dealing with everything but the issue of man is utterly fallen and must be utterly redeemed…not by the work of fallen man but by the work of Perfection…or better said…Perfection Himself. 
• Being justified in through placing your hope, trust…your life in the hands of Jesus Christ does not only mean that your sins are forgiven…that is mercy…it doesn’t only mean that God just loves you and blesses you even though you are a mess…that is grace…it means much much more than that…it means your sins are forgotten!  Satan brings accusation against you and God the Father opens the book and says, I have no record of that!  That is only only only ONLY found…Paul says it here…quit trying to be good enough Jew, quit suppressing it heathen…you both know that deep down your hope is on wishy washy shifting sand…that clearing away of your sin just-as-if-you-never-had-sinned in the first place…only found in Jesus Christ!
• Paul says no matter what, in all men there is no difference.  Jew or gentile, black or white, male or female, young or Chin…no difference.  Whether you keep to the law or whether you’re a rebel without a cause…all have sinned, all have fallen short of the glory of God…”but now” he says there in verse 21.  NOW!  Now what?

Romans Chapter 3 Verse 24

• Did you catch that?  Now what, Paul?  What’s the price, what are the rules?  If its not the law, if its not circumcision…then tell us, how can we have this justification?  Paul says, “freely!”  But that’s not just a price tag on our contribution…it is also the destination!  What!
• You can’t earn it!  You can’t learn it!  You can’t steal it and you can’t make a deal for it!  Paul said back in verse 21 that this righteousness apart from the law is what?  REVEALED!  Bingo!
• How can I grow in my understanding of you?  One would awkwardly say it this way, “how is it that the secrets of you, the rhythm of you, the deep secrets of you, how is it that those things are able to revealed to me?”  The answer?  Relationship!  Being with you, talking to you, watching you, staying tight with you…man I will learn the secrets…we will begin to know eachother…the deep truths of you, what makes you tick…all those things are revealed!
• I cannot buy information about April.  Information that’s worth anything.  How can I know her, how can I love her, what does she love, what does she hate…I can buy information that tells me what she likes…but not what she loves you see!?  That can only be revealed by my drawing near to her, seeking her…see that?  And Paul says here that true, genuine righteousness is not for sale, but it is free…What’s the cost, what must we do, what are the do’s and don’ts they ask…
• Paul says here in verse 24, this justification that doesn’t just deal with sin…it erases it…that doesn’t just procure the favor of God and the blessing of God…it restores it to all of its grandor and purity…its free by His grace through redemption…revelation…relationship with and in Christ Jesus. 
• But what did you mean by destination?  We are freely justified by Jesus…all of the law, all of the prophets, all of the Old Testament heros and types were not meant to save us but rather to point us to the Savior and by Him, and Him alone are we made right, for ever in the sight of God the Father and all of eternity…and therefore the gift of God to man…man’s salvation is free…the free gift of God…BUT…by this redemption we also arrive at free!  We call it freedom!
• Freedom from what?  Freedom from decay man, regret…loss…death, stack it up!  There’s so much!  And the reader would have perceived this readily by what Paul wrote.  You see Paul used a specific word here for redemption.  There are three words he could have used. 
• Agorazo means redemption in the Greek.  It is a word that draws the picture of a transaction.  This slave is $10,000, pay the $10,000 and you have paid the redemption, paid the price for this slave.  Congratulations, you have redeemed a slave, bought a slave and now they are your slave.  Not the word Paul used.
• Exagorazo means redemption in the Greek.  It is a word that draws the picture of a final transaction.  Congratulations, you have bought a slave and you will never again sell him.  Congrats on your new slave for life.  Not the word Paul used.
• Apolutrosis.  Specific word.  Odd word to the Jew and the Greek.  Hardly ever used.  It means redemption in the Greek but it speaks of a slave being bought with the sole purpose of elevation.  The sole purpose of making that slave a part of the family and giving him a portion of inheritance.  Buying a slave…without rights, without means, without hope, without family…simply to set him free…to give him or her all of those things…never to be sold again.  That is the word Paul uses here. 
• Jesus said in John 15:15, “I no longer call you servants, but friends.”  Redemption found in the law is redemption to the law, Jews.  From one tyrant to another.  Redemption found in self is redemption to self.  From one tyrant to another.  Redemption found in the cults is redemption to the cults.  From one slave master to another.  Redemption found in Jesus Christ is redemption unto absolute everlasting and eternal freedom and inheritance in the very house and family of the Father of all eternity. 
• Free to you because the price was paid already…by the precious blood of God Himself…His only Son…all He ever had that was just His…there in verse 25…

Romans Chapter 3 Verse 25

• God set forth Paul says there….God gave Him to us…because that was the only way…God set forth Jesus as a propitiation by His blood…what is propitiation?  Just what we’ve talked about!  Beyond mercy, beyond grace, beyond any law…Jesus restored us man…Jesus has become our worthy sacrifice because He was and is and will always be the only One righteous so that Paul could say here that God has passed over our sins…Jesus has paid the full price, purchased us all for the purpose of setting us free…
• Not covering the sin like the law did…not ignoring the sin like the heathen did…not outweighing the sin like all the religions try to do…erasing the sin man…God has moved on you see…that is the thought here…we use the word forgotten because that is all we have in the limitations of human understanding…but the idea is that Jesus has walked you into the courtroom of righteousness and although there is one who has kept a book of all the wrong that you have ever done…that book is not permitted as evidence…and the judge dismisses all charges due to a lack of evidence…and then He sits you right next to Him upon His wonderful bench…amazing.  THAT is propitiation…and it is only by Jesus, God makes that clear in verse 26.

Romans Chapter 3 Verses 26 – 31

• Paul places the “and so” upon the conversation for us…after shedding light on the state of fallen man, even in light of the laws they believed they were keeping, he comforts them…in Jesus Christ, God Himself, the Messiah…my brothers the law is established. 
• Galatians 3:24 says that the purpose of the law from the mountain top with Moses to the Book on your laps was always and forever will be to bring us to Jesus Christ.  Therefore placing out trust in Jesus, exercising our free will of choice to commit our lives and plans and purposes to Him…to place our faith in only Him…the very purpose for which the law was given is utterly accomplished.   How’s that?
• The law was a debt.  A debt that no man could pay…and so it stood.  Mankind must accomplish all of these things perfectly, lest mankind be estranged from God.  Because perfection cannot dwell with imperfection.  And so God became a man, and just as through one man, sin entered…through One Man sin was defeated.  The law was perfectly fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  He humbled Himself, took on the form of man, walked as we walk, hungered as we hunger, suffered as we suffer, loved as we love…yet without sin. 
• You shall have no other Gods before Me.  He didn’t.  You shall not make for yourself any idols.  He didn’t.  You shall  not take My name in vain.  He didn’t.  You shall remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.  He did.  You will honor your father and mother.  He did.  You will not murder, not commit adultery, not steal, not bear false witness, not covet…these things never even entered in His heart.  And the law observed, the school master watched…and upon Jesus’ gift of His body and blood for all of mankind…the law looked upon creation and sighed with relief and rested…
• Jesus said it is finished.  Your slavery.  Your separation from your father…it is finished.  Walk with Him into the courtroom of your heart…your day…your life…your eternity…don’t go it alone…take His hand, walk with Him…and be free…NOW.