4 Groups in Romans

I see 4 classes of people in Romans 1-5. (These actually correlate to 4 horses in the book of Revelation)

The first group are people who rejected the instinctive law of God within their conscience resulting in a continuous degradation deeper and deeper into open sin.

The second group of people are religious people who trust in their knowledge about religion and compare themselves with the open sinners through judgment in order to make themselves appear righteous.

Third group are those who do not know much about God, are not part of the religious establishment but who listen and follow their conscience quietly led by the Spirit of God unknown to them.

The fourth group are those gathered from all the previous groups who have accepted the reconciliation to God provided by Jesus, trusting in His righteousness fully and not at all in their own, and who seek for God's glory. Their focus is on God and what He does and believe in His abilities to do what He says He can do in our lives. Like Abraham they hope even when there is no apparent reason to hope, they praise God for who He is and not just for His obvious blessings – they live a life of faith that is a response to the faith God has in them. Instead of condemning others in judgment over them they celebrate what God can do for them. Instead of pious boasting about their own “righteous” lives they glorify God for His righteousness, goodness, faithfulness, grace and mercy. As they believe in God's ability to do the seemingly impossible they themselves come to be considered righteous in the eyes of heaven. As a result this righteousness in their hearts accepted by faith starts appearing in their life in the externals. They find themselves at peace with God, something that the first three groups do not experience. (see 1:18-22, 2:3-6, 2:15, 5:1)

(next in series)

Concealing Sin

Romans 4:7 ...whose sins have been covered (epikalupto).

To conceal, i.e. (figuratively) forgive:--cover.

Sync with God.

I cannot forgive my own sins without first letting God forgive them.

To forgive, from the Greek, means to conceal and cover. If I conceal my sins before I accept the forgiveness of God then I incorporate them into myself as part of my identity. Then they will show up when the light comes unavoidably and I cannot separate myself from them and then I experience hell.

Sin has to be forgiven to be neutralized. Jesus neutralized all sin on the cross by experiencing the full force of the effects of desynchronization from God. But each person must accept that neutralization provide for us or else they will experience the results of pain and death that are the natural and unavoidable results of sin when truth and light increase in intensity.

Everything will come to the light sooner or later. The only choice we really have is whether we will submit to agreeing with the light and synchronizing with truth now or denying and concealing our sin and having it exposed later after sin has destroyed our capacity to let go of it.

When we conceal our sin without confession and repentance we are attempting to forgive our own sin without synchronizing with God and the redemption He has provided. We are trying to forgive our sin apart from accepting Jesus' death and suffering for our sin. In reality we are trying to be our own savior. It is a lethal trap that will result in our experiencing the same suffering and death that Jesus already experienced on our behalf so that we would not have to experience it.

Why do we try to conceal our sins and trust ourself? There are many reasons put out there but if they are condensed down to their roots I believe it is because of the lies and deceptions that we firmly believe about God. We are immersed and surrounded with false ideas and beliefs about God, about salvation, about spirituality and especially about religion. Anything that detracts from the truth about God's consistent and never-ending kindness, compassion and love will introduce the element of fear which will lead us to draw away from God instead of turning toward Him.

What is very interesting is that the same thing that doesn't work for us when we attempt to do it ourself is the very thing that God desires to do for us. While it is impossible for me to permanently cover up my own sins and succeed at becoming my own savior, God promises to do that very thing if I will agree with His revelations about myself and trust Him implicitly with my guilt. Forgiveness means to cover and to conceal. If I try to cover and conceal my sins myself, I only stay out of sync with reality and set myself up to experience the painful and ultimately fatal results of sin in myself. But when God forgives me through Jesus Christ, He then covers and conceals my sins in Christ and nothing can really expose them again. My heart is protected from my accusers even though they may continue to hound me about my past. The responsibility for those sins has been taken over by Jesus and He will never allow them to oppress my heart again. The only thing that can bring them back onto my head is if I reject totally the redemption provided for me and turn back to believing the lies about God, and once again start trusting in myself and resist the Spirit of God permanently. (see 2 Peter 2:15-22)

When I confess my sins (agree with the Holy Spirit's conviction inside my heart of what reality is), I allow the light of truth (about God) to expose them and begin to see how much I am unlike Him. The light of truth is not so much the truth about how bad I am (or a list of doctrines or facts) as it is the truth of how lovely, good, kind and perfect God is. The truth about me is only exposed – can only be seen proportionally – to the degree that I perceive the beauty and perfection of God's goodness and kindness. It is the kindness of God that leads me to repentance (Rom. 2:4). God is not threatening me with judgment to get me to repent (John 3:17). He is revealing His loveliness, His passion for intimacy with me, His desire for my friendship and companionship with Him for eternity. His kindness and total lack of bitterness, resentment, threats or ill-will toward me is what awakens and empowers me to stop concealing my sin in fear. Perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18).

God does not use fear to lead me to repentance. Men use fear in their distortion of religion to intimidate others and themselves into supposed repentance. But this is all an illusion of true spirituality designed by the master of fear himself, Satan the accuser. Fear inherently torments us (1 John 4:18). When we believe we have to use fear to bring us to repentance we subscribe to a twisted picture of God who wants to torment us until we cave in and repent. This is part of the Big Lie that God is on trial for right now. God is not the ultimate torturer who is extracting confessions from suspects in His kingdom or venting His anger on rejectors of His mercy. That is the work of diabolical despots who reflect the character of Satan. God only uses the attraction of love to draw hearts to Himself. To do anything else would be to undermine in the hearts of the redeemed the very motives necessary for devotion and loyalty to preserve freedom from a re-occurrence of sin for the rest of eternity.

God loves the world so much that He gave Himself in the life of His Son Who took upon Himself all the pain and effects of every single sin every committed, so that anyone who believed that God was right and that He loved them, if they trusted His arrangement to take away from them the results of their specific sins, they could escape the awful consequences of being out of sync with the Source of life itself and will enjoy eternity living in the presence of love and joy and peace without any fear. (John 3:16 paraphrased)

For all of my life this text has meant very little to me because of the shallowness of its use and abuse. It was just a string of words that many people memorized, glazed over with many layers of religious piety without any depth of meaning. I wanted to understand its true meaning but have spent years chipping away at the layers of religious lacquer preventing it from coming alive. As I contemplated about forgiveness this morning and dialogged with God while I wrote down what came to my mind, I didn't realize I would end up at that text. Now it is taking on more meaning and life for me.

I do not want to cover up any of my sins and try to conceal them from God or live in denial. I want to be transparent and open about anything He convicts me of that needs to be released so that I can be synchronized with reality and receive His forgiveness and character in its place.

God, I crave a deeper, broader revelation of the truth about Your character, Your feelings and thoughts toward me, Your ways of relating to us. My heart is still in deep darkness even though my mind has seen much light and tries to believe it. I have to trust You to continue Your transformation of my heart to be more and more synchronized with Your heart and Your ways. Bring healing to the pain and the lies that still torment me and sabotage my relationship with You and with others. Help me to truly embrace the truth of Your everlasting kindness and unchanging love with my heart and soul and mind. Make me a messenger of the truth about You so that love can be awakened in others who are likewise suffering under similar delusions about You. Cause me to be a faithful friend of the Bridegroom.

(next in series)

Delicate

The thought keeps coming up again and again over the past months and recent years about the delicacy of God. It is not something that fits well with our normal view of religion or theology, but I have a growing conviction that it is far more important than I have given it credibility. It is something I need to stop and think about with more focus and intentionality.

One of the best and clearest examples of this is the experience of Elijah on the Mount of God after running away from Jezebel in disgrace. I believe Elijah had fine-tuned his ability and sensitivity over his lifetime of listening to the very gentle promptings of the Spirit of God – the still, small voice. He just forgot temporarily and was taken advantage of by the accuser who was able to intimidate him with fear temporarily. So God had to take him back to the lesson board and remind him of the most important element of communication with God.

When the Bible says that God spoke to someone, I will give that they may have heard an audible voice speaking to them with sharp clarity. But I also wonder if many times it was not so much an unmistakable voice that was clearly from the right supernatural source as it was a condition of extreme sensitivity on the part of the person who had learned so well to walk with God that they could sense Him impressions and feel the messages from His heart in the quietness of their soul without an external voice using human words. They might have developed an intimacy with God whereby He did not have to always condense His desires into human words but could directly communicate to their hearts and let their minds (left brains) translate them into human terminology.

The reason this is so difficult to even discuss or contemplate is that it is so out of tune with what we typically want to believe about God. We generally want to think of God in terms of power, advantage, blessings for our benefit, great external accomplishments and feats that defeat our/His enemies. These are the primary colors that we want to see God painted in and the beauty, tenderness, kindness, patience etc. of God we usually relegate to a secondary place in our views of Him. But I am coming to think this is all backwards and because of this tendency we find it very difficult to understand God very well, we find it very difficult to hear God very clearly, and we find it very difficult to interpret correctly the actions of God particularly when they appear to reinforce our cherished beliefs about His power and His motives.

But to even try to ponder and explore this side of God presents a real problem for us – and maybe especially for me. For the very nature of the way I think is so foreign to this concept that when I try to approach it it seems to hide and elude my concentration on it. I have the same problem when I try to relate to very sensitive people; I find that sooner or later they have been hiding much about themselves from me because they are really afraid of me even though I could not discern it. They often pull away from me and leave me guessing and wondering once again what I have done wrong to offend.

Now I don't have any illusions that God is hiding from me because of fear, but like a very delicate snowflake that is glistening with unimaginable beauty, when I approach it the very warmth of my presence and the unintended effects of my warm breath cause its beauty to melt away before I have time or opportunity to really appreciate its beauty and delicacy. That is the feeling I get each time I begin to approach this subject, this truth about God.

But that does not mean I have to give up in despair. I believe God's desire for all of us is to come into such a relationship with each one of us and bring us to the place where we will be able to dialog heart to heart with such an openness and sensitivity that we will never need to resort to words if we choose not to. And our sympathies and feelings and desires will be so aligned and reflective of His that we will have simply become perfect and unique reflections of some aspect of His feelings, thoughts and personality, though not a complete replication. I believe that it takes all of the Body of Christ, all of the people united that He is preparing who are willing to be transformed into reflections of part of Him – all of them together who will reflect more completely the wholeness of God. That is why we cannot grow very well outside of a living, vibrant community of genuine believers, because that is the context where we must be stimulated and protected while we grow up in maturity and reflection of God.

I have been working in my garden lately and have been frustrated at how very delicate some of the plants and vines are. My intentions are all very well and good as I work with them but the results sometimes have been catastrophic. I have been putting straw underneath the long growing vines to keep the fruit from lying on the dirt and getting moldy. But in moving the vines to get the straw under them they very easily kink or break causing the vines to wither and sometimes die completely within a few days. They are so delicate and sensitive that it is nearly impossible to do what I need to do without causing even more damage than what I am trying to prevent.

Obviously it would have been much wiser to lay the straw down much earlier before the plants grew so large so I would not have to move them now. But that is wisdom that will have to wait for another growing season to be of use now. What is more exasperating is that there is no shortage of weed vines that have no problem whatsoever in being moved, tampered with, yanked around etc. without complaining or dying. Why couldn't the good fruit-bearing vines be as healthy as the weeds? I know, every gardener since father Adam has been asking that question. But I strongly suspect there are a lot of spiritual lessons embedded intentionally by God in these things of nature for me to learn in my dealings with others and also with Him.

I can see that this subject of the delicacy of God is not emerging very well in this writing. I am also realizing that it is a subject very important but so complex and sensitive that it will take much more than this writing to begin to explore it. However, I still feel it is far too underrated in its significance and I want to pursue it and experience it much more intentionally. Even though my words and my relationships are all too much like my clumsy fingers attempting to move delicate vines and causing a lot of damage in the process, I have to trust God's grace to heal the damage and guide me into having more skill, insight and sensitivity so that I can be much more like Him in patience, kindness and grace.

I can see that this is a side of God that is probably much more revealing about His true nature than most of the ones I have been exposed to all of my life and I want to move in this direction. Even though most people around me don't sometimes appear as interested in this as much, it may be just because of the numbness of my perceptions more than the reality of their intentions. It is the Spirit of God that is coordinating the creation of His Body and it is His job to do the secret heart-work necessary for each of us to be more skilled and willing to live in the delicate, sensitive atmosphere that is a reality when living in closeness to God. In the meantime we live under the umbrella of grace where God protects us from the myriads of catastrophes that our ineptness causes in our hearts. I want to become more sensitive, more gentle, more relaxed and observant and caring. That is a work that I will have to trust the Holy Spirit to accomplish within me for I do not have the ability or even the desire sometimes needed to arrive at that condition.

God, show me more about this side of You that has been hidden from my dull senses for so long. Grow new capacities within me that will enable me to hear You more clearly and sense Your feelings and thoughts more instantly. Polish my mirror so that I will better reflect the truth about You to others. Repair my nerve damage that limits my motor skills and feeling receptors and awaken new thoughts and desires in me that I have never known before. Make me an experiment of Your grace that will amaze even the angels that stand around Your throne and think they have seen everything. Yes, You have promised to do it and You are faithful to finish what You have started. I trust You to fulfill Your Word in my heart and life and rest in Your love and protection and good plans for me.

Justification

Justified.

I am starting to unpack that word and get an idea of what is underneath it.

The base of the word is just, which is also a word that needs a lot of unpacking before I can understand justified.

What does just mean? A good, but partial definition is fair. But what is fairness?

Fair is when circumstances or people are impartial, when decisions are made that are not influenced in the slightest by selfishness on the part of the one making the decisions. A judge is expected to be just and fair and impartial meaning he cannot be biased in favor of one party over another through their influence or pressure on him. Ideally a just judge would love both parties absolutely equally and want the very best for both of them without any prejudice or bias whatsoever. That would be the exemplary ideal of justice.

So with this in mind let me go back to the word justify. When I am wronged by someone, hurt inside, lied about, wounded in my spirit, violated in any way, I am strongly tempted to believe that I am justified in doing or saying something that will discredit – nullify to some extent – what they have done to me. I feel that justice demands an equalizing of the “balances” somehow. So I may feel justified in hurting them in some way, or at least wanting them to experience to some degree what they have caused me to experience. In my mind that seems like fairness.

We believe that it is fair that when one person hurts another the offender should receive equal treatment to what they have done to others. In our natural thinking that is the essence of fairness. In fact, that is what theoretically the legal system is expected to be all about. We instinctively believe in the principle of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. This concept of fairness lies at the very deepest level of our psyche. We incorporate it into our laws and believe that Divine law also operates somehow in this manner. Otherwise we would have to conclude that God is not fair and many of us do not want to admit to such feelings. Others openly admit that they feel God is unfair and charge Him with injustice in the way He deals with us.

If God is not just He must be biased in some way which would make Him unfit to be an impartial judge of others. Following this line of thinking we have to conclude that God, to be just, must not only be impartial in His judgment but administer justice (think punishment), which in our thinking means arbitrarily inflicting pain on all offenders to the same degree that they have hurt others. After all, that is the basis upon which our judicial system operates, though highly uneven and imperfect at best. We put people into prison or fine them to create social or economic pain because we believe they have caused pain to others through their infractions of our rules.

This is what the Bible calls living under the Law. This system is based on the motivation of fear and deterrence to produce right living. We somehow believe that unless people are afraid of the consequences of wrong behavior they will not stop their evil ways and will only become worse. We think that fear is much stronger than love or grace and so, living under the law, we choose the path of judging to motivate others to live in the right way.

When we choose to indulge in administering justice ourself by trying to evaluate how much another person has injured us or someone else, and then attempting to inflict punishment through pain, shame or some other form of retaliation on them, we have made ourself a judge. In so doing we are inadvertently making some very big claims about ourself.

First of all, we believe that our perceptions and information is enough to discern the heart and the wrong motives of the person we are judging and we base our decisions on what we believe to be true about them. The problem is, it is actually impossible for us to see inside their hearts. We cannot know their background and view of reality from the context of their experience. So in place of that we use the only frame of reference we have available to us – our own perceptions, feelings, background and motives based on what we feel we might have done in a similar situation.

We then project all of this onto the situation and the other person to determine what we decide was their motives and intents. Based on the outcome of this formula we categorize them into one of our familiar labels that we have made for others or have learned from society around us. We then decide how they should be punished by suffering for the damage and pain that they have caused us and others by their violations against us, preferably as much or more than the suffering we have experienced. Using this formula to arrive at our decisions is what we call justification for the way we treat them. We feel justified in our statements about them, our anger toward them, our hatred or hard feelings or attempts to discredit their reputation or hurt them in some way.

When it is spelled out clearly like this it is a little easier to see that there are some serious flaws in this kind of reasoning. But those flaws do not prevent us from daily, if not almost continually, indulging in this kind of activity and thinking. It is so common that we believe it is just a part of normal life and cannot be avoided. We realize sometimes that we make mistakes in judgment about others, but we excuse that by trying to refine our formulas that we use to judge them and get better and more information so that our judgments will be more accurate next time. That is part of what drives the media craze in society today. We want to know as much as possible (mostly about negative information about others, particularly in high positions of power and influence) so that we can arrive at some kind of judgment about them. Even if we are not in a position to administer what we believe is justice, we fill our imaginations and conversation with ideas about what we believe should be done about them or to them to correct the injustice that we believe is being inflicted on us or others. (The more I think about this just writing it down the more frighteningly large this problem emerges in my consciousness.) We feel justified in slandering them, discrediting them, exposing them etc. in our belief that they can somehow be stopped from further injustice or wrongdoing by our intimidation through slander in some way. We are engaging in an evil for evil relationship with them (even if we don't have a relationship with them) in an attempt to somehow force them to reform, repent or at least regret what they are doing and maybe change their ways and start living more righteously. This is living under the Law. This is what Jesus was talking about when He said we should not judge if we do not want to be judged.

But we don't really understand this subject very much at all. I know I have never understood it or really thought about it clearly. It has always seemed more like another rule that I was supposed to keep that really didn't make a lot of sense to me but somehow I was supposed to obey. After listening to Clarissa Worley's sermon on judging about 5 times in the last 2 weeks it is finally starting to sink in what this is really about. And it is very unnerving when I realize how immersed I am along with everyone around me in this kind of thinking and activity. I am just starting to perceive the tip of the iceberg of this problem and to realize how pervasive this is and how much we damage each other because of this one thing. My own recent experience of being accused publicly and the deep pain that it caused my family has heightened my awareness of this issue and is stimulating me to begin to realize how much I may be doing the same thing to others myself without realizing it.

Judging means that I project my context, my background, experience and perceptions onto the actions and words of another and making a decision about their motives based on that. Since only God is really able to read the heart and the motives of anyone, for me or anyone else to engage in this kind of activity is to believe that we have god-like capabilities. We are setting ourselves up as the judge, no matter how small the matter may be, and are really saying we can do as good a job, if not better, than God can do. Since we often subtly believe that God is not taking action soon enough to deal with a situation or person, we are all too eager to step in and take “corrective action” to prevent further pain and damage that we believe the other person may cause. We believe that in judging them that we can motivate them to change and maybe even repent and turn from what we firmly believe is their evil intents. In doing this we are not only replacing God as judge but we are also trying to replace the Holy Spirit as their convictor. This sounds very serious when presented in this light but we don't usually think of it this way when we feel compelled to expose the sins or faults of some person we feel has wounded us or we believe is a threat to others.

The real fact is that when we see something in someone else's life that triggers strong, intense negative feelings in us it is always because there is something in our own soul that painfully resonates with what we are perceiving as a problem and indicates a pain that we have not yet dealt with inside ourself. But because we are often unwilling to face the issue in our own life and admit responsibility to seek for healing in our own soul, or maybe because we harbor feelings of resentment and unforgiveness deep in our heart that we are unwilling to admit, we take those strong reactions and push them outside of ourselves, label them with a slightly different label so that they will not be identified in our own life, and then project them on the person who “caused” us to feel these feelings. We want to gloss over and keep hidden our own unresolved pain or faults and we use judgment of others to draw away any attention that might occur to expose our own issues, even to our own mind.

So is it ever possible for us to be a fair judge? Do we have the qualifications to be a judge? That would require that we be totally selfless and impartial in our spirit as well as able to clearly discern what is in the heart and motives of others. We also have to be able to take into account everything that ever happened to that person and be able to see reality as they perceive it so that we can understand the context of their words and actions. None of us are capable of doing any of these things.

Jesus Christ came to this earth to deliver us from the terrible effects of judgment. He made it absolutely clear that He did not come to condemn the world but to save. He refused to engage in judgment while He lived on earth even though He was the only person who had all the capabilities to do so. For if He had exercised judgment we would have been destroyed by the revelation. Jesus did not come to judge but to bring the atmosphere of grace to this world so that we could heal and be restored into fellowship with the Father. He went even farther than that by taking on all of the pain and suffering of all the judgment brought about by all of our sins and allowed it to crush out His very life on the cross. He did that so that we would not need to live under the Law but in the liberating atmosphere of grace and freedom where we could mature and grow up into the likeness of God for which we were created.

When we judge each other we remove that protective shield of grace and place the Law over others and ourselves. When we do that we bring in death-producing elements into our lives and become the enemy of Christ. Satan's name means “the accuser”, and when we participate in judgment we join him in his diabolical activity of accusing those for whom Jesus gave His life. As Paul says in Romans 2:1 “Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.”

The only option we have if we really want to be Christ-followers is to suspend all judgment – period. There is never a time or situation when it is right to judge another person. It matters not how many around us indulge in this practice or badly we are hurting from someone else's words or actions against us. If we indulge in retaliation and judgment we always only end up putting ourself under condemnation. It is unavoidable. And in doing so we remove ourself from the protective covering of grace that Jesus provided to protect us.

(John 5:22-24) The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life. (NRSV)

I choose to enter into a covenant with God to suspend all judging. I know I cannot do this naturally, but I depend on the Holy Spirit to empower me, convict me and possess me to live this way. I want to stop all judging in my life for I do not want to be judged. I choose to follow the example of Jesus who refused to judge anyone even though He was entrusted with all judgment by God the Father. I want to honor God by not passing judgment on anyone but leaving all judgment to Jesus who alone has been given that responsibility. I choose to believe in His word and in His kindness and perfect character so that I can experience eternal life; so that I do not come under judgment but can pass from death into real life. So help me God.

(next in series)

Focus on God - Romans 3

I am seeing another major paradigm or theme emerging from Romans 3 that is obvious once it is noticed. The whole chapter revolves around a tension between righteousness, credit, justification, worthiness of people vs. that of God. Chapter 2 through the middle of chapter 3 deals a lot with religious people looking for recognition, credit, merit of some kind based on something they do. Ironically when the “good” things they do are all discredited as being of no real value – their lawkeeping, their circumcision, their superior knowledge – they even begin grasping at their sinfulness in comparison with God desperately trying to somehow leverage it in hopes of generating some kind of “credit” for bring glory to God (3:5-8).

This universal insistence on trying to draw attention to anything that makes us look better, a focus on our righteousness, our goodness no matter what path we follow in doing so, is the root problem of sin-infected religion in all ages and in all places. It is inherent in our upside-down view of what salvation, sin and the underlying real issues are all about. It comes in the context of a very egocentric view of our relationship to God and lies at the root of all false religion (which is always considered to be the other ones from ours). It is very tenacious in our thinking and deceives all of us to some extent or another as to what true spirituality is all about. It prevents, or at least taints, our understanding of the bigger picture, the context of the realities of the real Controversy that is actually going on in the universe that we are inescapably caught up in.

The whole book of Romans deals with this problem of a skewed perspective and tries to draw our attention to the real issues that need to be seen and the real context in which we live. The gospel is not a formula figured out by Jesus to get people off the hook, legally creating a loophole whereby they can escape punishment by an offended, angry God. True religion does not revolve around analyzing the comparative value of people, weighing their moral worth to see if they are heavy or light enough to allow into paradise (where they can more fully satisfy their selfishness). It is true that most religion has degenerated into some form of this kind of thinking, but true religion, true spirituality, a true view of the real issues at stake, reality itself is radically different from all this.

I was taken by surprise today when I began to notice how often in chapter 3 Paul emphasizes God's character. That alerted me that this was likely the major issue he was trying to convey in this chapter drawing attention away from any supposed righteousness or merit that we think has to be noticed in our life. What he is saying is that the real focus needs to be on God's faith, on God being justified or vindicated, on God's righteousness, on God's reputation. In fact, Paul declares that the very thing we have tried to use to make ourselves look good enough to convince others and God that we are worth saving was intended to expose how really bad and helpless and sinful we are – the Law. “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Romans 3:20.

Even today things are not much different. We claim that we believe in grace, we often say and think we are trusting in Christ for salvation. Many of us convince ourselves that we are not trying to generate merit by law-keeping, but instead we mistakenly substitute our own faith as the focal point of our trust instead of works of the law and think that our faith will save us. This is so subtle that it is difficult to expose until we come to view things through the framework of the bigger picture. Then we begin to discover to our chagrin that we are no different than the legalists and the Jews, that we are still trusting in something we can do to leverage or influence God to “save” us. We end up working very hard to have more faith so that we will be found to have enough to get God to give us what we want. By doing so we encourage a hidden pride that we don't even realize is lurking in the shadows of our heart, a pride in our humility, our faith, our knowledge of the Word, our piety or whatever is our religious preference. But the attention is still on us and how our beliefs or knowledge or faith empowers God to save us. It is a mingling of truth and error so subtle that it is very difficult to untangle in our minds, especially when variations of it are so widely taught and accepted in every religion on earth.

The primary symptom of the particular brand of this false idea that Paul was exposing seemed to involve boasting (2:23 & 3:27). Boasting may be obvious or it may be so hidden and subtle as to make us think we are free from it. But boasting is just another face of pride and pride is the very root symptom of selfishness – the essence of sin. Whether we boast openly about our righteousness in whatever form that takes, or whether we boast inwardly in our self-generated humility and feel satisfied with our chosen brand of religion, the problem still remains. Any religion or belief, even if not overtly religious, that focuses on our character, our fitness, our faith, our lack of hypocrisy, our... misses the real perception of reality. The Great War that we are inescapably embroiled in is not about us but about God, His reputation and His character. The Gospel is not a formula primarily for our benefit, though it does greatly benefit us, but is first and foremost the good news of the truth about what God is really like. Notice how many times in this chapter (3) Paul tries to draw our attention to this fact.

(2) The Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. This reveals the faith that God had in them, how much He trusted them even though they proved not worthy of trust.

(3) Their unbelief did not nullify the faithfulness of God.

(4) God is truthful, even though every other person is found to be lying.

(4) God is willing to be judged (that is amazing in itself), and His words will be justified when they are ultimately found to be always truthful.

(5) Our unrighteousness ends up demonstrating the righteousness of God even though our unrighteousness causes us to perceive His passionate love as wrath when it exposes our selfishness.

(7) Through our lies the truth of God abounds to His glory. Verses 10-18 quoted from the Old Testament contrast various aspects of our sinfulness with the opposite, positive, implied attributes of God.

(19) The correct orientation of true religion is accountability to God.

(21) The righteousness of God has been manifested – which was one of the main reasons for the Law and the Prophets.

(22) The righteousness of God is revealed again by the faith that Jesus had in us when He chose to die for us while we were still sinners, just like God had faith in the Jews in the Old Testament (2).

(22) His righteousness and faith are both available to be reproduced (inspired) inside of all those, without any artificial distinctions, who believe in the truth about God.

(24) Being justified – being released from condemnation, guilt and the death that sin always produces – is given to us by God as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

(25) God displayed Jesus publicly as the real Mercy Seat. The mercy seat in the Old Testament sanctuary was hidden from the public just as it was more difficult to see the mercy of God in the Old Covenant arrangement. But it was still there! But now God has put it out in the open so that we can know, can see and can believe in His unfathomable mercy and love.

(25) The original symbolic mercy seat was sprinkled with blood during special sanctuary services symbolic of the plan of salvation. Jesus, as the fulfillment of the symbolic mercy seat, poured out His own blood and life in a demonstration of God's willingness to take on all of our pain caused by our sins so that in Christ we could free from those curses and enjoy the benefits of His perfection. He did this in faith that we would respond to God's overwhelming revelation of love toward us. This is what it means to demonstrate the righteousness of God.

(25) In the forbearance of God, He passed over the sins previously committed. He did not allow the rejection of the Jews to the offer of God in good faith in the Old Testament to prevent Him from again making another offer in good faith, but this time to the whole world.

(26) God's righteousness is again demonstrated at the present time so that He would be seen and realized to be just and fair as well as enabled before the watching universe to justify anyone who accepts and responds to the faith of Jesus.

(29) God is the God of everyone, Jews, Gentiles, Christians, any religious professions, no religious professions.

(30) God will justify (bring into right standing and relationship with Himself) anyone through the gift of faith – faith ignited in us, inspired by His faithfulness, His faith and trust in us.

(31) This ingredient of faith (that originates with God) reveals the true nature and purpose and integrity of the Law.

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