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Justification By His Grace: Romans 3:23-24

One of the key passages that was involved in the Reformation was Romans 3:23-24. St. Paul writes,

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…”

It’s a fairly common verse. 

It explains the situation that we’re in, that we’re all in. We’re sinners. We have fallen short of the Glory of God. 

But that’s not all it says. It also says that we are justified…meaning we are declared to be righteous and made righteous as a gift through Jesus’ blood, suffering, and death on the cross. Whew! Say that 5 times fast!

Read through Romans Chapter 3, focusing on 21-31.

The whole passage, ranging from 3:21-31 is a complete thought where Paul is defining what it means to become righteous in Jesus Christ. 

When I was starting work on this post, I did a quick Google search of Romans 3 and followed the link to related images. I like learning through pretty images. Right away, a whole bunch of colorful images with Romans 3:23 popped up in the search results. 

Just the one verse, though. Verse 23, on nice backgrounds with creative typography, but no Verse 24. No context. Just the bad news that we’re sinful and fall short of God’s glory. Oof.

This got me wondering, why are there so many that leave off the second half of that sentence? The verse numbers and chapter divisions, while very helpful for quoting the Bible and looking things up quickly, are not part of the text of the Bible itself. Those are added for ease of use. Verse 23 is not really meant to be split from verse 24. 

But we often do things just like this. Context matters. Pulling a verse out of context is a super-easy way to miss the point. Read the whole sentence, the chapter, the whole book. Better yet, consider where that verse fits the entirety of Scripture. It’s an exciting and vital part of reading the Bible. 

Do you look for bad news?

I think that there’s a real reason for an oversight like this. We often gravitate toward the bad news. We’re comfortable talking about sin. Saying that everyone is a sinner and leaving it at that allows us to do a couple of different things. 

First, we can use it as an excuse for our poor decisions and behavior. It’s a variation on the whole, “I’m only human” thing. We also have the tendency to use it as a weapon against others. We try so hard to convince other people that they’re sinners too, and although we usually think of our intentions as being pure, it’s not always the case. 

Still, it’s missing the point. The point is the second half of this sentence. 

Romans 3:23 is important to us in the grand scheme of things because it paints an accurate picture of us. 

We’re sinners who have fallen and continue to fall short of the glory of God. If that doesn’t sound like good news, it’s because it’s not good news. We like to think of ourselves as “enough” or at very least good enough to improve ourselves to an acceptable level. Here’s the problem: we’re not good enough by our own power and strength. 

So…is that the “Good News”?

While that is not good news in and of itself, it opens us up to something that truly is good news. While shattering the illusion of saving ourselves, we are brought to a point that we’re ready able to see what God’s solution to our sin truly is. 

If we could save ourselves through our works, we’d be required to do it. But we’re not, and we can’t. You can’t trust your works for salvation and trust Jesus at the same time. 

We’re All in the Same Boat

The other value of this Bible passage is realizing that we’re all in the same boat. Where we might otherwise rank ourselves and others in varying degrees of good and bad, what we see here is that apart from Christ, everyone has the same standing before God. 

There’s no ranking scale of good and bad, it’s either good or bad. 

And the only one good is Jesus. 

We bristle at this thought, that surely there’s some ranking scale from “horrible sinner” to “good person” with “pretty good person” in the middle. In the horizontal view of human relationships with each other, this is true. Before God, there’s either righteous or unrighteous. 

That’s what St. Paul is getting at in this passage, and that’s why you don’t chop it in half. We are justified, that is, we are declared to be righteous by God as a GIFT! You can’t earn a gift! Wages are earned. Gifts are freely given. 

You can’t earn justification, you can’t make yourself righteous by your works. Only God can do that and He does it without any cost to you. It cost Jesus everything, it costs you nothing. 

Let’s Talk About Justification

You might have noticed that I’ve been using the terms, “declared righteous” and “made righteous” interchangeably. That’s for good reason. The language that Paul is using here is intentionally “legal”… notice it’s courtroom-type language. 

Justification is God’s declaration that you are righteous, or in a right relationship with Him. You have no sin or fault standing between you and Him. 

See this previous post in this series for more on “righteousness”. 

In declaring something, God makes that thing a reality. In the beginning, God created out of nothing. His Word makes something out of nothing. When God declares you righteous, you become righteous. 

Where formerly we had nothing,  now you stand as a person who God has made to have the very same perfection as Jesus. 

This of course is an article of faith, but Scripture here declares that this is the case. You are made righteous by God’s declaration, and we believe this to be true because God’s speaking makes it so. 

When we don’t observe this in our lives, we cling to what God has said to be true of us for Jesus’ sake rather than what our senses tell us. Paul will later unpack this mystery of faith in Romans 7, where he describes that war waging within us between the new righteous person in Christ and the old sinful flesh. The thing is, that old sinful flesh, our sinful will one day pass away and cease to exist, but the new person who God has made us to be in Jesus Christ has eternal life even now, even in a new, glorified, sin-free body. 

When we die, or when Jesus returns (whichever comes first), the sinful nature will be gone forever. Our resurrection selves will be without any sin whatsoever. Until then, we in faith believe what God has declared to be true even when we don’t always see a righteous person in the mirror. 

Redemption

This word that Paul uses, “redemption”, is of huge value to us. We see the value God has placed on us. Redemption is financial language, the language of the marketplace. You have been purchased, bought back from your temporary owner through Jesus Christ. 

We were once held captive by sin, death, and the power of the devil. Now, Jesus has paid the price to set us free. 

If you struggle to see your own value, if you have a hard time seeing yourself as important or worthwhile, consider the price that Jesus has paid for you. 

Martin Luther uses beautiful language in the Small Catechism, a nice simple explanation of the Christ faith, to describe that value placed upon you by God. 

“I believe that Jesus Christ…has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood, and His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, live and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true. ” 

The price that Jesus paid for you was His holy precious blood, and His innocent suffering and death. That’s how valuable you are. Not only did Jesus pay this price, but the purpose was that He wanted you to be His own and live with Him forever. 

This righteous life, the Jesus-filled and Jesus-empowered life that God has given you through Jesus is a life without end and a life of purpose and meaning that begins now and continues in eternity. 

When we serve Him in this life, it’s by serving our neighbor in all the areas of life He’s placed us for service. It’s a life lived by faith; believing what God says about us more than any other voice, even our own.  And all of this as a gift, freely given by God to you and received through the faith He’s given to you in Jesus Christ our Lord. 

You matter. You are important. Jesus paid the price for you. You are called into many vocations in this season of life. God is with you and we are all in this together. Remember…we are all in the same boat…united.