16  How Christ Died for God (3:25b-31)

This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.

Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law. (3:25b-31)

Among the most obvious characteristics of modern society is selfism, manifested in self-centeredness, selfishness, self-gratification, and self-fulfillment. People are absorbed in their own feelings, their own desires, their own possessions, and their own welfare.

Sadly, selfism has found its way into Christianity and has almost become a hallmark of some purportedly evangelical churches and organizations.

Christ is portrayed as the answer to all problems, the source of peace and joy, success and happiness, the One who makes life worth living and saves from hell.

In the right biblical perspective, Christ is the answer to man’s needs, the first of which is salvation from sin. And it is certainly true, of course, that life in Him is the only escape from hell. Obviously salvation involves man, and just as obviously it is the greatest blessing a human being can receive—the single great blessing apart from which no others have any permanent value.

But in Scripture, salvation does not focus on man but on God. God’s Word makes clear that the foremost purpose of salvation is to glorify God. “All things have been created by Him and for Him,” Paul reminds us (Col. 1:16). The psalmist declared, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Thy name give glory because of Thy lovingkindness, because of Thy truth” (Ps. 115:1). That should be the continual heart cry of every believer.

Since God is the one and only true God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, the source and measure of all things, He alone has the right to be glorified. He alone has the right to man’s worship and adoration.

Through Isaiah, God said, “I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God…. There is no other God besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none except Me. Turn to Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. I have sworn by Myself, the word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance” (Isa. 45:5, 21–23).

Because God is our sovereign Lord, Paul admonishes believers to honor and glorify Him in even the smallest and most mundane things we do. “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Our very reason for existence is to glorify God. Instead of being consumed by our own interests and feelings and welfare, we should be lost in the wonderful privilege of living to give God praise and adoration. In everything we do, we are to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33).

In his book Our Guilty Silence, John Stott says that the best example he knew of a person consumed with glorifying God was Henry Martyn:

Here was a man who could live in the most uncomfortable of circumstances without complaint but was heartbroken over a pagan society that dishonored his Lord.

Doubtless David was a man after God’s own heart because he could truthfully declare, “I have set the Lord continually before me” (Ps. 16:8). Despite his sins and shortcomings, the major focus of his life was always on God.

The worldly spirit of selfism is perhaps the major reason most Christians are not aggressive in witnessing to the lost. It is the reason the church, for the most part, is not moving out into the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Christian who is primarily concerned about his own comfort and blessings, even his spiritual blessings, does not have his focus on God. Consequently, his life will not be directed toward fulfilling God’s Great Commission.

In the summer of 1865, Hudson Taylor became tremendously burdened for the land of China. His biographer reports that he also became greatly troubled about the church he was attending in Brighton, England. As he looked around the congregation he saw

Out of that prayer eventually came the China Inland Mission. Due to that ministry and others like it, there are reportedly twenty-five million to perhaps fifty million believers in China today, despite its officially atheistic government.

God could use men such as Henry Martyn and Hudson Taylor because their attention was not focused on their own interests but on God’s.

Salvation is first and foremost a way of glorifying God. The fact that it saves men from hell and gives them eternal life, marvelous and wonderful as that is, is secondary to the glory of God. The cross of Jesus Christ had the most dramatic effect on mankind in providing the way of redemption. But Jesus’ death on the cross was primarily to glorify God. He glorified God during His earthly ministry, enabling Him to say to His heavenly Father, “1 glorified Thee on earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do” (John 17:4).

Speaking to every believer, the apostle Paul writes,

Even when we think about heaven, we have a tendency to focus on the great blessings and joy we will have there. But the Lord brings believers to heaven first of all in order that they might glorify Him forever. That is the purpose for which man was created, and that will be the eternal purpose of all who are re-created by God’s grace through faith in His Son.

On his deathbed David Brainerd said, “My heaven is to please God and glorify Him, and give all to Him, and to be wholly devoted to His glory. I do not go to heaven to be advanced, but to give honor to God. It is no matter where I shall be stationed in heaven, whether I have a high or low seat there, but to live and please and glorify God” (Jonathan Edwards, The Life of David Brainerd [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980 reprint], pp. 330–31).

There will, of course, be bliss beyond description in heaven, but even that bliss will itself be an eternal testimony to the grace and glory of God.

The theme of the book of Romans, and the heart of the gospel message, is the doctrine of justification by faith alone in response to God’s grace. It is a doctrine that has been lost and found again and again throughout the history of the church. It has suffered from understatement, from overstatement, and, perhaps most often, simply from neglect. It was the central message of the early church and the central message of the Protestant Reformation, under the godly leadership of men such as Martin Luther and John Calvin. It is still today the central message of every church that is faithful to God’s Word. Only when the church understands and proclaims justification by faith can it truly present the gospel of Jesus Christ.

One of the most significant passages that teaches that truth is the present text (Rom. 3:25b-31). At first reading this passage seems terribly intricate, complicated, and baffling. But its basic truth is simple, while also being the most profound truth in all of Scripture: Justification for sinful mankind was made possible by God’s grace through the death of His Son Jesus Christ on the cross, and it is appropriated by men when they place their trust in Him as Lord and Savior.

The cross affects those who trust in Jesus by giving them eternal life. Through His death and resurrection, God “delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10). As Paul testifies later in Romans, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him” (5:8–9; cf. 2 Cor. 5:18; Titus 2:14).

The cross affected Satan by breaking his power and dominion over the earth. The writer of Hebrews declares that through His death, Jesus Christ rendered “powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14). In doing that, Jesus “delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin” (Col. 1: 13–14).

The cross obviously affected Jesus Christ Himself. In obedience to His Father’s will, He suffered the agony of taking sin upon Himself and of paying its death penalty, and He was resurrected in order that He might return to the never-again-to-be-broken presence of His heavenly Father (John 14:28).

The cross also affected God the Father and the Holy Spirit, because of their perfect oneness with the Son.

In Romans 3:25b-31, Paul directs our thought specifically to four ways in which the cross of Jesus Christ glorifies God—by revealing God’s righteousness (vv. 25b-26), by exalting God’s grace (vv. 27–28), by revealing God’s universality (vv. 29–30), and by confirming God’s law (v. 31).

THE CROSS REVEALS GOD’S RIGHTEOUSNESS

This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (3:25b-26)

As explained in the previous chapter, righteousness, justification, and their verb and adjective forms are from the same Greek root. As those two English words indicate, the basic meaning relates to what is right and just.

A look at ethnology and the history of religion shows that, without exception, pagan gods were, as they still are, made in the likeness of men. Their only difference from men is in their presumed power. Otherwise, they reflect the same moral deficiencies and frailties. They are capricious, inconsistent, and totally unpredictable. In the Greek and Roman pantheons, the fabricated deities were continually competing among themselves and were jealous of one another and even of human beings who demonstrated unusual intelligence, skill, and power. Some of the gods supposedly demanded a high standard of conduct from human beings but were themselves whimsical and often grossly immoral.

That is exactly what one would expect. Man-made gods can never be more than larger-than-life images of men. Many ancient men and women, in fact, lived on a much higher moral plane than their gods reportedly did. Men would frequently accuse a particular god of unfairness and wrongdoing and appeal to another god or gods to rectify the wrong of the erring deity.

Men have even been quick to judge the true God in much the same way. Unbelievers frequently point to what they consider capricious, unjust, and even brutal acts on God’s part. “If your God is so holy and just,” they ask, “why does He let His own people suffer so much and let wicked people, including the enemies and persecutors of His people, get by with terrible sins? And why does He let innocent people suffer because of the wickedness of others?”

Many things that God is reported in Scripture to have done do seem, from the human perspective, to be unjust and unrighteous. Why, for instance, did God not let Abraham actually inherit the land promised to Him? Why did He allow His people to stay and suffer so long in Egypt before He delivered them? The Hebrews who were delivered were no better than their ancestors who came there in the first place. They were, if anything, much worse, having picked up many pagan beliefs and practices from their Egyptian masters. After God gave possession of the Promised Land to Israel, why did He frequently use ungodly and fiercely wicked pagan nations to conquer, persecute, and scatter His own chosen people? The punishers were worse than those they were used to punish.

In human systems of justice, a judge or other high official in public office who commits a given crime often receives greater punishment than would an ordinary citizen. Their high office demands a higher standard. “Why, then, should the highest of all gods,” people have wondered, “not Himself be held accountable to man’s highest standards of righteousness and justice?”

The prophet Habakkuk doubtless understood with Moses that the Lord is “The Rock! His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He” (Deut. 32:4). Yet the godly Habakkuk could not understand why the Lord would let His own people suffer while pagan nations prospered. “Thine eyes are too pure to approve evil, and Thou canst not look on wickedness with favor,” He prayed. “Why dost Thou look with favor on those who deal treacherously? Why art Thou silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they?” (Hab. 1:13).

Certain Jews in Malachi’s day were concerned about the same thing, but unlike the humble Habakkuk they presumed to judge God, saying impiously, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them.” Others asked, “Where is the God of justice?” (Mal. 2:17).

Anticipating such questions, the Holy Spirit led Paul to declare that, through the cross, God not only allowed but planned before the foundation of the world what would be the most unjust act that men could commit—the putting to death of His own sinless Son. But through that heinous act on men’s part, God not only manifested His divine righteousness by offering His own Son but also used that act of divine grace to demonstrate His divine righteousness. Through that incomparable sacrifice, God provided punishment for sin sufficient to forgive and blot out every sin that would ever be committed by fallen mankind—including the supreme sin of crucifying His own Son, for which every unregenerate person shares the guilt (Heb. 6:6).

That greatest of all acts of God’s grace was further demonstrated by His divine forbearance, as He passed over the sins previously committed. God is not unaware of nor does He condone even the smallest sin. His forbearance is therefore not a sign of injustice but of His patient and loving grace. “The Lord is not slow about His promise,” Peter assures us, “but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

God’s justice and grace are on a perfect and infinitely grander scale than human wisdom can perceive or comprehend. Because of His justice, no sin will ever go unpunished; yet because of His grace, no sin is beyond forgiveness. Therefore every sin will be paid for by the sinner himself in the form of eternal death and punishment in hell or it will be paid for him because he has placed his faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on his behalf.

Paresis (passed over) does not carry the idea of remission, as the King James Version renders it, but refers to passing by or overlooking. In the context of God’s forbearance, the meaning is therefore that of a temporary passing over sin and of withholding judgment on it for a certain period of time. After the Fall, when God could have justly destroyed Adam and Eve, and therefore the human race, He passed over the sins of fallen mankind. Even in the Flood the Lord saved eight people, not because they were perfectly righteous but because they trusted in Him. In the same way, the many subsequent judgments of God recorded in Scripture were never universal, but were rendered upon specific individuals, groups, or nations.

The psalmist Asaph understood something of why God allows many wicked people to live and thrive, often at the expense of those who are less sinful. He wrote that God, “being compassionate, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them; and often He restrained His anger, and did not arouse all His wrath. Thus He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and does not return” (Ps. 78:38–39).

In his discourse before the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers on the Areopagus (Mars Hill) just outside Athens, Paul said, “Having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30–31).

From the beginning, God had demonstrated “His eternal power and divine nature” for all men to see (Rom. 1:20). Through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ, God gave mankind the ultimate revelation of Himself—the ultimate demonstration … of His righteousness at the present time.

That is why the God of perfect holiness could be both just as well as the justifier of the sinful and unworthy one who has faith in Jesus. Though he could not have known the full truth of what he wrote, the ancient psalmist beautifully pictured Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross: “Lovingkindness and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Ps. 85:10).

The real “problem,” as it were, with salvation was not the matter of getting sinful men to a holy God but of getting a holy God to accept sinful men without violating His justice. It was only through the cross that God could provide a just redemption for sinful men. But of immeasurably more importance was that the cross demonstrates forever that God is both supremely just and supremely gracious. First and foremost, Christ died that the world might see that neither God’s holiness nor His justice have been abrogated. God has perfect and absolute integrity. The cross was the ultimate vindication of God’s justice and righteousness. The most unfathomable of all spiritual mysteries is that of the holy and just God providing redemption for sinful men and in that gracious act, not violating any attribute of His nature, but bringing supreme glory to Himself.

Just as the primary purpose of salvation is to glorify God, so is the confession of sin by those who are saved. When God chastens His children and they confess their sin, they testify to their heavenly Father’s justice and righteousness and therefore to His glory. It is as if a person saw a father spanking his child and the child told the onlooker that he was being rightly punished for something wrong he had done. Just as such a confession by a human child honors and vindicates his human father, so the confession of sin by God’s children honors, vindicates, and glorifies their heavenly Father.

Joshua understood that truth, and when Achan’s sin was exposed, Joshua told him, “My son, I implore you, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and give praise to Him; and tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me” (Josh. 7:19).

Two beautiful and beloved hymns express something of the faithful believer’s awesome awareness of God’s justice, righteousness, and grace.

From the pen of the nineteenth-century poet Elizabeth C. Clephane came “The Ninety and Nine,” which includes these lines:

Isaac Watts wrote in his famous hymn:

THE CROSS EXALTS GOD’S GRACE

Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. (3:27–28)

The cross proves the utter futility of man’s coming to God in his own way and power. Where then is man’s boasting? Paul asks. In answer to his own question, he declares unequivocally, It is excluded.

Because the power of salvation is in the cross of Christ alone, man has no cause for self-congratulation or self-satisfaction—much less for the self-exaltation that is now so widely proclaimed under the guise of the gospel.

Paul reminded the Corinthian believers: “Consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble” (1 Cor. 1:26). Paul was, of course, using those descriptions purely on the human level, because in God’s sight and by His standard, no person is wise, mighty, or noble. He goes on to say, “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God” (vv. 27–29).

By what kind of law is boasting excluded, Paul asks. Is it on the basis of works? Again answering his own question, he declares, No, but by a law of faith. Not even Abraham, the father of God’s chosen people, was justified by works (Rom. 4:2). “For by grace you have been saved through faith,” Paul declared to the church at Ephesus; “and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast” (Eph. 2:8–9).

The attitude of true faith is exemplified by the tax-gatherer in the Temple, who “was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me, the sinner!”’ (Luke 18:13).

The greatest lie in the world, and the lie common to all false religions and cults, is that, by certain works of their own doing, men are able to make themselves acceptable to God. The greatest error in that belief is its sheer impossibility. But the greatest evil of that belief is that it robs God of His glory.

Paul completely cuts the ground out from under works righteousness by declaring, For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works, even the good works done in response to God’s own Law.

What, then, is this saving faith that is completely apart from works? First we will consider some things that neither prove nor disprove true faith. Although they will be evident to some degree or another in true believers, they can also be evidenced, sometimes to a high degree, in unbelievers.

First is visible morality. A person can be outwardly moral and yet not be saved. Some pagans and cultists put many Christians to shame by their high standards of behavior. When a certain young man came to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” Jesus told him to keep the commandments and then proceeded to list some of the major ones. When the man responded, “All these things I have kept,” Jesus did not challenge his sincerity. According to outward appearance and his own human perception of obedience, the man probably was speaking the truth. But when Jesus told him to sell all his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor and then “come, follow Me,” the man “went away grieved; for he was one who owned much property” (Matt. 19:16–22). By his refusal to obey Christ, the man demonstrated that his outward obedience to the law was not done out of love for God or for the purpose of His glory but was done out of self-love and for the purpose of his own self-interest. When commanded to give all of his possessions as well as all of himself to Christ, he refused. And by that refusal, even his seemingly good works were exposed as spiritually worthless works, because they were done out of selfish motivation.

Second, intellectual knowledge of God’s truth is not necessarily a proof of saving faith. It is possible to have a great deal of knowledge about God’s Word and yet be unsaved. Like the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day, many scholars throughout the centuries have devoted their lives to careful study of Scripture. But because they did not believe or obey the truths they studied, those truths became a judgment against them, and they remained as lost as the primitive tribesman who is unaware that there is such a thing as Scripture. To his self-confident brothers in the flesh Paul said, “You bear the name ‘Jew,’ and rely upon the Law, and boast in God, … [but] through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? For ‘the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, “just as it is written” (Rom. 2:17, 23–24; cf. Ezek. 36:20–23).

Third, religious involvement is not necessarily a proof of saving faith. In the Old Testament, the Lord repeatedly condemned the Israelites for their meticulous outward observance of the Mosaic ordinances and ceremonies while having no trust in Him. The ten virgins in Jesus’ parable had the same outward dress and carried the same kind of lamps. The fact that all ten women were spoken of as virgins suggests that outwardly they were all morally pure and religiously faithful. But five of them had no oil in their lamps, and because they lacked the oil of saving faith, they were disqualified from meeting the bridegroom, who represented Christ (see Matt. 25:1–13).

Fourth, active ministry in Christ’s name is no certain proof of saving faith. Outwardly, Judas was as active as the other disciples, witnessed by the fact that he served as their trusted treasurer. And obviously he considered himself a follower of Christ. But Jesus sternly warned, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Matt. 7:21–23).

Fifth, even conviction of sin does not necessarily demonstrate saving faith. Mental institutions throughout the world are filled with people who are so burdened by the knowledge of their sinfulness that they cannot function in society. Their sense of guilt became so overpowering that it drove them to insanity—but it did not drive them to Jesus Christ. Others who are convicted of their sin determine to reform themselves. Many people who have been long and deeply enslaved by a particular sin have been able, sometimes through sheer will power, to rid themselves of it. But successfully forsaking that particular sin in their own power makes them even more susceptible to other sins, especially pride. They are like the man who managed to rid himself of an evil spirit. But after a while the spirit returned and found the man’s life “unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first” (Matt. 12:43–45). Self reformation drives a person further from God’s grace and therefore further from salvation.

Sixth, assurance of salvation is not an infallible mark of saving faith. The world is filled with people who are sincerely convinced in their own minds that they are right with God and that their place in heaven is secured. If being persuaded that we are Christians makes us Christians indeed, we would need no warnings about being deceived by false hopes. If it were not possible to believe oneself saved when one is not, Satan would have no way to deceive people about their salvation. Yet Scripture is full of warnings to unsaved people who think they are saved (Matt. 7:21–23; James 1:22).

Seventh, the experience of a past “decision” for Christ does not necessarily prove saving faith. If no evidence of godly living results from that event, no matter how strong and genuine the profession seemed to be, it is no proof of salvation.

There are, however, some reliable proofs of saving faith. God does not leave His children in uncertainty about their relationship to Him.

The first reliable evidence of saving faith is low for God. “The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God,” Paul says (Rom. 8:7). The unsaved person cannot love God and has no desire to love Him. The true child of God, however, despite his often failing his heavenly Father, will have a life characterized by delight in God and His Word (Ps. 1:2). “As the deer pants for the water brooks,” so his soul pants and thirsts for God (Ps. 42:1–2). Jesus declared, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matt. 10:37). The true believer will proclaim with Asaph, “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And besides Thee, I desire nothing on earth” (Ps. 73:25). Love for God will be the direction of the true believer’s life, if not the perfection of it. Peter declares, “Unto you therefore which believe He is precious” (1 Pet. 2:7, KJV).

A second reliable evidence of saving faith is repentance from sin and the hatred of it that always accompanies true contrition. This second mark of saving faith is the reverse side of the first. The person who genuinely loves God will have a built-in hatred of sin. It is impossible to love two things that are contradictory of one another. “No one can serve two masters,” Jesus declared categorically; “for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other” (Matt. 6:24). To love the holy and righteous God is, almost by definition, to have a deep abhorrence of sin.

“He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper,” the writer of Proverbs declares, “but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion” (Prov. 28:13). This verse links the two inseparable parts of true repentance: the confession and forsaking of sin.

When confronted by Nathan concerning his sins of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah, David’s repentance was genuine, as reflected in Psalm 51. “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness; according to the greatness of Thy compassion blot out my transgressions,” he prayed. “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight” (vv. 1–4).

The true believer often hates sin even while he is doing it and always after he has done it, because it is completely contrary to his new nature in Christ. Even though a believer’s humanness sometimes draws him into sin and, like Paul, he does the very thing he knows he ought not to do (Rom. 7:16), he will have no peace of conscience until he repents of it.

True repentance is more than simply sorrow for sin. Judas became bitterly sorry for His sin of betraying Jesus, to the extreme of committing suicide; but he did not repent of his betrayal or ask Jesus’ forgiveness. Paul commended the Corinthian believers for being “made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God” (2 Cor. 7:9). True repentance always involves godly sorrow, sorrow that one has disobeyed and offended his Lord.

No Christian becomes completely sinless until he goes to meet the Lord. “If we say that we have no sin,” John says, “we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” But he goes on to give the beautifully encouraging word that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8–9).

If a person’s sin does not bother him and increasingly put him under conviction about it, that person’s salvation is questionable. The test for true repentance is not simply sorrow for the way sin harms oneself (as it always does), but sorrow for the sin’s offense against the holy Lord, which above all else leads a believer to implore God’s forgiveness.

Someone has written, “When God touches a life, He breaks the heart. Where He pours out the spirit of grace, there are not a few transient sighs that agitate the breast, there are heart-rending pangs of sorrow.”

A third reliable evidence of true faith is genuine humility. A person cannot be saved as long as he trusts in and exalts himself. Salvation begins by confessing one’s poverty of spirit (Matt. 5:3) and the willingness to deny self and take up the cross of Christ (Matt. 16:24). Like the prodigal son, the true believer who sins will eventually come “to his senses,” his spiritual senses that convict him of sin. He will then, again like the prodigal, go to his heavenly Father and humbly confess his sin and his unworthiness of forgiveness, while pleading for it on the basis of his Father’s grace (see Luke 15:17–21).

A fourth reliable evidence of true faith is devotion to God’s glory, which is closely related to the love of God and repentance of sin. The true believer will say with Paul, “My earnest expectation and hope [is] that I shall not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death” (Phil. 1:20). As already noted, although that desire will not be seen in perfection in the true believer’s life, it will always be evidenced in the direction of his life.

A fifth reliable evidence of true faith is prayer. “Because you are sons,” Paul told the Galatian believers, “God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal. 4:6). The heart of a genuine Christian cannot help calling out to God, who is his heavenly Father and whose own Spirit is within him to generate that yearning.

Every genuine Christian will freely admit that he does not pray as often or as earnestly and persistently as he should. But in his innermost being, communion with his heavenly Father will be the desire of his heart. As Jonathan Edwards succinctly observed, “Hypocrites [are] deficient in the duty of prayer,” which is also the title of two great sermons on the topic (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2 [Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1986 reprint], pp. 71–77).

A sixth mark of saving faith is selfless love, not only for God, as in the first mark, but also for other people, especially fellow Christians. “The one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the light and there no cause for stumbling in him” (1 John 2:9–10). Later in that letter John said, “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death” (3:14). The person who does not sincerely care for the welfare of true believers is himself not a true believer, but still abides in spiritual death. Again in that letter John says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and every one who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (4:7–8).

A seventh mark of saving faith is separation from the world. Believers are called to be in the world but not of it. They are in the world to testify to Christ, a central testimony of which is not to reflect the world’s standards and ways (see John 17:15–18). “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world” (1 John 2:15–16). On the other hand, “Whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. And who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:4–5). The person who has saving faith has “received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God” (1 Cor. 2:12).

An eighth mark of saving faith is spiritual growth. The central truth of the parable of the soils (Matt. 13:3–23) is that true believers will always grow spiritually to varying degrees, because by faith they have genuinely received the seed of the gospel. “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil,” Jesus said on another occasion; “and [he] goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts up and grows—how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head” (Mark 4:26–28). Like the farmer and his crops, the believer does not understand how he grows spiritually, but he knows that because he has spiritual life within him he will grow (see also Eph. 4:13; Phil. 1:6).

The ninth and final mark of saving faith is obedient living. “By this we know that we have come to know Him [Christ],” John says,” if we keep His commandments. The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him” (1 John 2:3–5; cf. 3:10). Although no one is saved by his good works, those who are truly saved will produce good works, because “we are [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

THE CROSS REVEALS GOD’S UNIVERSALITY

Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.

(3:29–30)

Pagan religions almost invariably have many gods. Frequently there is a supreme god who is more powerful than the rest, but he shares with them a common form of “deity.”

The fundamental truth of Judaism, however, has always been “The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” (Deut. 6:4). That truth is repeated in one form or another throughout the Old Testament. Through His prophet Isaiah, God Himself declared, “I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God” (Isa. 45:5). There is only one God, the Creator, Sustainer, and Lord of the entire universe. There are no “lesser gods,” only false gods that have been created by man’s imagination and often are demonically inspired and empowered.

Yet despite the central truth of their faith that there is only one God, many Jews in biblical times believed that Gentiles somehow were outside the domain of “their” God. Instead of considering themselves as belonging to God, they virtually considered God as belonging only to them.

Jonah resisted going to Nineveh not because he thought his witness might fail but because he feared it would succeed. He confessed to the Lord, “Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore, in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that Thou art a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness” (Jonah 4:2). He tried to flee to Tarshish because he knew his preaching might cause the pagan Ninevites to trust in God and become acceptable to Him. He confessed, in effect, that although he knew he belonged to God and was His servant, he did not want to be like God in His love and grace.

From their own Scripture the Jews knew that many Gentiles had found favor with God. They knew that Rahab, not only a pagan Gentile but also a prostitute, found favor with God. They knew that Ruth, a Moabitess, was the great-grandmother of David, their greatest king. They knew that the prophet Elisha graciously volunteered to heal Naaman, a captain in the army of Syria, of his leprosy. Yet many Jews persisted in their deep prejudice against, and often hatred of, Gentiles.

Probably having had such prejudice and hatred himself before his conversion, Paul anticipated the question many Jews would ask in regard to justification by faith. He therefore asked rhetorically, Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? The obvious answer, even for a prejudiced Jew, would have to be, Yes, of Gentiles also. If there is only one God, then He had to be the God of Gentiles as well as of Jews. If there is only one God, He has to be the God of everyone.

As far as men’s religions are concerned, there are, of course, many “so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords,” Paul says; “yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him” (1 Cor. 8:5–6).

Having established that the Jews had God’s law given through Moses, that the Gentiles had His law written on their hearts and consciences (2:11–15), and that there is only one true God, Paul makes his argument irrefutable: The God who will justify the circumcised, that is, Jews, by faith and the uncircumcised, that is, Gentiles, through faith is one. Just as there is only one God, there is only one way of salvation—faith in Jesus Christ.

In his letter to Timothy, Paul reminded his young protege, “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:3–6).

Just as all men are equally condemned by God for their sin (Rom. 3:19), they are equally offered God’s gracious salvation through faith in His Son. As the apostle declared near the opening of the letter, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek [the Gentile]” (Rom. 1:16).

As Paul later demonstrates in this letter, salvation by faith has always been the only way of salvation, under the covenant of Moses and before that even for their first and greatest patriarch, Abraham (4:1–3). Hebrews 11 makes clear that God’s way of salvation by faith alone extended back to the Fall, when the need for salvation began.

THE CROSS CONFIRMS GOD’S LAW

Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law. (3:31)

The next question Paul knew his readers would ask was, Do we then nullify the Law through faith? “If men have never been saved on any other basis than faith in God,” they would argue, “then the law not only is useless now but was always useless.”

Again Paul responds with the powerful repudiation, May it never be! (see 3:4, 6). “A thousand times no,” is the idea. The cross of Jesus Christ, through which justification by faith was made possible, not only does not nullify the Law but confirms it. On the contrary, Paul says, we establish the Law.

As far as salvation is concerned, the gospel does not replace the law, because the law was never a means of salvation. The law was given to show men the perfect standards of God’s righteousness and to show that those standards are impossible to meet in man’s own power. The purpose of the law was to drive men to faith in God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus declared God’s perfect standards to be higher even than those of the Old Covenant. A person breaks God’s law, He said, not only by killing but even by hating (Matt. 5:21–22), not only by committing adultery but by having lustful thoughts (5:27–28). If it is impossible to fulfill perfectly the Mosaic law, how much more impossible is it to keep the standards set forth by Christ in His earthly ministry.

The cross establishes, or confirms, the law in three ways. First, it establishes the law by paying the penalty of death, which the law demanded for failing to fulfill perfectly and completely its righteous requirements. When Jesus said that He had come not to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill them (Matt. 5:17), He was speaking not only of His sinless earthly life but of His sin-bearing death.

Second, the cross establishes the law by fulfilling its purpose of driving men to faith in Jesus Christ. Paul had already declared that “by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified” (3:20). “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point,” James says, “he has become guilty of all” (James 2:10). “The Law has become our tutor,” Paul told the Galatians, “to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith” (Gal. 3:24).

Third, the cross establishes the law by providing believers the potential for fulfilling it. “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirements of the Law might be fulfilled in us” (Rom. 8:3–4).