In the third of a series of sermons on 4 great “Chapter 3’s” in the Bible, Michael Penfold looks at the apostle Paul’s devastating argument in Romans 3 in which he finds all human beings guilty, but the reveals the way for those same sinners to be declared righteous through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. (Recorded in Thunder Bay Gospel Hall, ON, Canada on 12th Nov 2025)
Complete series on Great Bible Chapter 3’s:
- The Great Tragedy – Genesis 3
- The Great Necessity – John 3
- The Great Remedy – Romans 3
- The Great Mystery – Ephesians 3
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Transcript:
This is a court scene, a divine court scene. So what we’re going to do for the next 40 minutes is we’re going to go through this court case. And it will end big time in Chapter 3. And we’re going to outline who the judge is, who the accused is, who the prosecutor is, what the charges are, who the witnesses are.
And as you piece all these things together, you’ll be following the mind of Paul, obviously, but you’ll be following the mind of the Spirit of God. You’ll be following the workings of salvation. You won’t just be thinking in terms of, I got saved because I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You will get a thrilling, a logical, a spiritual, a deep understanding of exactly how this great plan of salvation plays out from a court scene.
So who is the judge? Well, it’s pretty obvious that God must be the judge. The judge is God. Now come over to chapter two, and we’ll look about what kind of judge we’re dealing with. Number one, the judge is faithful. Look in verse two. We are sure the judgment of God is according to truth. He judges according to truth. He’s an absolutely faithful judge. Number two, the judge that we’re up against is factual. Look in verse six, who will render to every man according to his deeds?
He knows what has been done. You don’t have to redact anything. The Epstein files don’t have to be released. He knows it all. He’s fair, sorry, he’s faithful, he’s factual. And now look to verse 11, he’s fair. There is no respect of persons with God. So when we think of this court case, and we think of the judge, he can’t be bribed, he can’t be blinkered, he can’t in any way have the wool pulled over his eyes. He’s faithful, he’s factual, he’s fair, and he knows everything, he’s omniscient. You say, who are the accused?
In the dock is humanity. Every human being who’s ever lived is in the dock in this chapter, including you. Oh, you say, I’m saved. No, but I’m just thinking back to before you were saved. You were in the dock. Now, although the whole of humanity is in the dock, Paul will address this humanity in two parts.
He’ll talk about Gentiles and he’ll talk about Jews. Now if you want to know who Gentiles are, they’re all the people that are not Jews. So that’s nice and easy. So Noah wasn’t a Jew. The first Jew or Hebrew was Abraham. And through his seed we have, physical seed we have, the nation of Israel. Humanity’s in the dock, but we’ll be dealing with them in two groups. Gentiles first, and then Jews.
Now, who’s the prosecutor? Who’s bringing the case? Well, Paul is going to be the prosecutor. That doesn’t mean that Paul is your judge or my judge, but Paul is the writer who’s laying out the case. It’s really God’s case, but Paul is acting in the prosecution’s manner by laying out the case and bringing in the witnesses and so on. So we have the judge, the accused, and the prosecutor.
Now, let’s come to the charges. The charges against the Gentiles are actually somewhat different to the charges against the Jews. Now come back to chapter 1, and let’s look at the charges against the Gentiles, because he deals with the charges against the Gentiles in chapter 1, and then he deals with the charges against the Jews in chapter 2.
Now there are many things that the Gentiles have done wrong, which are listed from verse 29 to 32. There are something like 20 sins listed in that list. It’s a pretty desperate list. But before he gets to that list, he accuses the Gentiles of making three exchanges, swapping something good for something bad.
So let’s look at exchange number one. Let’s look at verse 23. Romans chapter 1 verse 23, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, that’s verse 22, and changed. Now, that word can be and should be translated exchanged. They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man. So exchange number one, Gentiles said, we’re not going to worship the triune God anymore.
We’re going to worship idols of our own making. And of course, we know where that started. It started in Genesis 11 at Babel. So if you trace Hinduism, and Shintoism, and the religion of the Aztecs, and the Incas, the Romans and the Greeks, and today even in the Roman Catholic religion, the worship of Mother Mary and the child, these are all, these are all go back to ancient paganism, and they started in Babylon, and they will end in Babylon.
So that’s exchange number one. Now exchange number two is in verse 25. They changed, again, the word there can be translated exchanged, they exchanged the truth of God into a lie, and they worshipped and served the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever. So, instead of worshipping the triune God, they exchanged him for idols. Now, in verse 25, they’re exchanging the truth of God for the lie of idolatry.
You say, well, that’s the same thing. Well, it is the same thing in a way, but it’s being stated in a different manner. Now, this is a sort of stage process that goes down. You reject God. Where do you go now? Well, man’s got to worship something. I think it was GK Chesterton said, when a man gives up in believing in God, he doesn’t believe nothing. He believes anything. If you stop believing in God, you’ve now got a vacuum. You need something bigger than yourself, so you start worshipping an idol. You start worshipping an idol, where does that go? Now you become the believer of a lie.
Where does that go? Does it stop there? No, it doesn’t stop there. Here’s exchange number three, verse 26. For this cause, God gave them up. unto vile affections, for even their women did change, again, exchange the natural use into that which is against nature. So it starts with exchanging the triune God for idols, then it’s the exchange the truth of God for the lie of idolatry, now it’s changing heterosexuality for homosexuality, and these things are connected. a rejection of God, an embrace of idols, false worship, leading to immorality. Wow.
That’s a different view of history than you get in your sociology class in university, isn’t it? Have you ever seen that picture where they have a sort of little, tiny little monkey here, and then there’s sort of a bigger ape-like creature, and then it sort of looks a little bit more human, and then even more human, and then finally you’ve got modern man. So what does that totally fake image imply? That we’re on this onward and upward journey, we’re getting better and greater, now we’ve got AI, aren’t we so clever?
According to Romans 1, it’s the other way around. We started with this tall, sinless, innocent man and his wife in a garden, and we went down and down and down and down and down to now. We don’t know whether we’re male or female, up or down, or what we are. Well, that’s why we should study our Bible instead of studying the daily newspaper. Only we don’t read newspapers anymore.
Now, that’s the Gentiles completely and utterly written off. What about the Jews? Oh, well, you say, they’ll be much better off. They know their Bibles, and they go to the synagogue, and they’ve got the promises, and they’ve got the covenants, and, well, you know, Paul will be a lot softer on them. Well, Paul was a Jew himself, and he wasn’t a bit soft on them. Look down to verse, chapter two now, verse 17. Behold, thou art called a Jew. And he talks about how they’re resting in the law and all the things that they’re boasting in. And then he says, right, verse 21.
You teach your next door Gentile neighbor that he shouldn’t steal? You steal. You teach your Gentile neighbor he shouldn’t commit adultery? You do. And so he accuses them of stealing and of committing adultery and committing sacrilege. And then in verse 23 and 24, he basically says, you’re a hypocrite. You’re doing the very things that these people, that you are condemning others for, and you may actually, because you are as bad as them in reality, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, verse 24. So more is expected of you because you’ve got more light.
These Gentiles that were worshipping idols down there in South America and Africa and China and wherever it was, well what did they know? But you got the law, you got the promises, you got the covenants, you got the prophets, and you’re just as bad as them.
Now I know we like to think that Israel is a wonderful place, and we like to visit it, and it’s the only democracy in the Middle East, and we’re all great supporters of Israel because they’re God’s people. Technically, at the moment, they’re not God’s people, but they are God’s people, so there’s a bit of a conundrum for you. And I’m a firm believer in the restoration of the nation of Israel, and how you could read your Bible and not know that, I do not understand, nevertheless. If Jeremiah was alive today, he would be standing up in the streets of Tel Aviv denouncing the fact that they have a pride march and denouncing the fact that they are the gay capital of the Middle East.
You see, that nation is as bad as far as their morality is concerned as the Gentiles. And so this is the case against them. Now, says Paul, these charges can be substantiated. I am now going to bring in witnesses. I’ll bring in witnesses against the Gentiles, and I will bring in witnesses against the Jews. Now come back to chapter 1, and let’s look at the witnesses against the Gentiles.
Who would you bring in? If you were the Apostle Paul, and you wanted to sort of corroborate what you’re saying, that the Gentiles are guilty, who would you bring in? Who would you bring into the court and say, prove it? Tell us what you know about these Gentiles over here and corroborate what I’m saying.
Well, the first person he brings into the court is creation. Look at chapter 1 verse 20. For the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
A man said to me the other day, what about those who have never heard the gospel? Now that’s not an easy question to answer, I understand that. And if you’ve heard the gospel, you should be very thankful for some people who have never heard the gospel. But nevertheless, a Gentile living in whatever country he lives in, even if he’s never heard the gospel.
Thank God today, if you’ve got any kind of smartphone, you can download the Bible in any language you want. But if you live in the middle of nowhere and there’s no church within a thousand miles, you can still look up at the sky and there is enough proof in the sky that there is a God.
Atheism is an utter and complete, deliberate lie against the truth. They say, show me evidence. I always say to atheists, show me what isn’t evidence. Everything I look at is evidence of God. This platform is evidence of God. That chair is evidence of God. My hand is evidence of God. the light rays from that light. None of this would be here if there wasn’t a God. Where did it all come from? God made it. Every single thing that you can see and feel and smell and touch is evidence that there is a God. He says here, look at creation. What can you understand from creation? God’s power. Of course you can understand God’s power. Whoever made this must be mighty powerful. You can also understand his Godhead, his divinity.
I’d love to spend the rest of the night on that verse, but we mustn’t get waylaid. So creation basically stands in the witness box and says to these Gentiles who are saying, well, well, well, we didn’t know. What were we supposed to know? Oh, yes, you did know. You did know there was a God. You worshiped idols and you committed all these heinous sins, but don’t tell us you didn’t know there was a God. You have no excuse.
And then he brings in another witness. He brings in, come to chapter two, he brings in the witness of conscience. So he says about these Gentiles, they don’t have the law written on a stone. So God came down on Mount Sinai and gave the Jews the law written on a stone. He never did that to the Gentiles. But he says in chapter 2 verse 15 that the Gentiles show the work of the law written in their hearts. Now that doesn’t mean that all 615 commandments of the Torah were written in the hearts of the Jews, not at all.
But what it means is the basic moral laws of God that would be born into someone’s conscience, even though they are a sinner by birth, they would just know that murder is wrong. They would know that lying is wrong. Why do children grow bright red in the face when they’re caught out lying? Because they got this thing in them called a conscience. So verse 15 says, they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing them witness. And they’re always accusing or excusing themselves.
So a Gentile who says, oh, you can’t judge me. You can’t send me to hell. Number one, you’ve committed a very long list of sins. You’ve exchanged all the wrong things, all the right things for the wrong things. And you knew all along that there was a God. And you had a conscience.
Now, obviously, that conscience can be obliterated. And what kind of conscience can some of these awful dictators and leaders have? How can someone like Putin just go to bed at night knowing that another 3,000 soldiers have been ground to death on the front lines? That can happen. Nevertheless, they are without excuse. So that’s the Jews, that’s the Gentiles sorted out. What about these Jews?
Who should we bring into the dock? Well, we’re in chapter two, so look down to verse 17. Here’s who we’re gonna bring into the dock. Behold thou art called a Jew and restest in the law. Let’s bring the law into the dock. The law of Moses. Let’s bring the Ten Commandments into the witness box, should I say, not the dock, into the witness box. And those Ten Commandments point their finger at the Jew and say, you boasted in me.
You rested in me. You were proud that you had the law. But actually, You broke the very laws that you were proud of. So this law of God, it’s not gonna support you and save you from the judgment. It won’t save you from the judgment any more than atheism will save you from the judgment. Law condemns you if you break it.
Now, here’s the second witness. Two witnesses for the Gentiles, two witnesses for the Jews. Look down to verse 25. For circumcision verily profiteth if thou keep the law. But if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision.” So God gave a sign. Each covenant in the Bible has a sign. The Noahic covenant had the rainbow, and the Abrahamic covenant had circumcision. So if you were a Jew, male, you have to be circumcised. And they’re very proud of that. And this is a sort of signal that this is who I am.
And they almost came to the point where they rested on a physical operation on an eight-day-old baby as the way to get accepted to God and accepted by God. And so Paul says, well, what good will that do you if you’ve had an operation as an eight-day-old baby, the sign of the covenant, and you’re as bad as your Gentile neighbor? It’s not going to save you at all. Circumcision is only profitable if you are keeping the law, but you are absolutely not keeping the law.
Well, I hope you’ve understood. Maybe we’ve beaten it to death a little bit, but the Jews and the Gentiles utterly and completely at this point, their feet taken from under them. So now is the time to get the gavel out and bang it down and say, guilty! Ah, but the Jews haven’t finished yet. They got some objections. And that’s what we started in chapter three. Objections. You can’t judge us. Look at verse one of chapter three. What advantage hath the Jew? What profit is there of circumcision? So they’re basically saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You’re just telling us we’re as bad as the Gentiles. You’re just telling us we’re as guilty as the Gentiles. Well, what’s the point of being a Jew then? I mean, we didn’t ask to be Jews. You made us. You gave us the law. You picked us out. You picked Abraham. You gave us all these dietary laws and everything.
And we’ve tried all these centuries to remain faithful and separate. And now you’re basically saying, well, you’re just as bad as the Gentiles. So what was the point? Man never gives up, does he? It’s a self-righteous thing that just… So Paul says, hang on a minute, hang on a minute.
Yes, that is true. There’s a great advantage of being a Jew. You get the oracles of God. It’s a very, very real advantage. Just a pity you didn’t obey it, wasn’t it? Objection overruled. So then in verse 3, they come up with another objection. Well, if some of the Jews are going to be lost, then, well, Where does that leave God’s character, His faithfulness? I mean, He’s supposed to be the God of the Jews, and He’s supposed to save all the Jews. I mean, if some of us go to hell, I mean, that looks bad for God. Paul says in verse 4, look, yeah, you’re the chosen nation, but if you are a sinner and you have broken God’s law, God will be just for condemning you It will be a just condemnation, let God be true, and every man, whether he’s a Jew or Gentile, a liar.
Objection overruled. So they come up with another objection in verse five. Okay, so you’re saying we’re unrighteous. Yes, OK, perhaps, when no one’s perfect. But even an unrighteous Jew makes God look very righteous. I could sort of live an unrighteous life, but there’s a sense in which that actually makes God look good. So it’s not so bad after all.
You talk about obtuse. You talk about an obtuse argument. So he says in verse 6, your reasoning If we were to follow that reasoning, that would take away all ability and all right for God to judge sin at all. It’s an utter nonsense of objection. Objection overruled. And then in verse seven, they really dig in their heels. I mean, it’s the most ridiculous thing. So what if we told lies? That makes God look like he’s more true than we are.
I mean, it’s the same kind of thing. And all these objections, he flatly overrules them because they are utter, they are clutching at straws. So we’ve had the judge, the prosecution, the accused, the charges, the witnesses, objections overruled. Now we just need two things. We need the summing up and we need the verdict. Now the summing up is from verse nine to verse 18 of chapter three.
What then? says Paul in verse 9. Are the Jews better than the Gentiles? I mean, you’ve got to understand. I mean, if you get up in a knesset and say that, expect to be thrown out. What shall we say then? Are the Jews better than the Gentiles? No! perhaps the greatest Jew that ever lived, Paul the Apostle, headed for rabbi stardom when he got saved on the Damascus road. Are we Jews better than the Gentiles?
No, we’re not. If you sit down next to an Orthodox Jew on an airplane, expect him to ask to be moved or expect him to ask them to move you. They won’t even sit next to you. That’s how superior and separate many of them feel. Are we better? No, says Paul, we’re not.
All the Jews and all the Gentiles, they are under sin. And then he starts quoting all these Old Testament verses. Why does he do that? Because it’s their Bible. They don’t believe in the New Testament, their Bible is the Old Testament. And so he says, I will prove that you are sinners from your own Bible. Are you ready?
Bang, and he comes out with, I don’t know whether you’ve ever heard of Ian Paisley, but he was a fiery Protestant preacher from Northern Ireland. And he preached a sermon one day on it called Four Black Roman Nuns. But it wasn’t spelled N-U-N-S. It was spelled N-O-N-E-S. Here’s the four black Roman nuns.
There is none righteous. There is none that understandeth, verse 11. There is none that seeketh after God, verse 12. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. You say, why are they Roman nuns? Because it’s in the Book of Romans. Four black Roman nuns.
So then we come to the verdict. But just before he slams down the gavel and says guilty, he’s got one more boil to lance. The law. What are we going to do with the law? Where is the law of Moses in all of this? You’re just flattening us all, telling us we’re all sinners, telling us we’re all guilty. but we’ve got the law and we have maybe not perfectly, but we’ve kept the law as best as we can. And we’re sort of looking at it as a ladder to get us to heaven.
So Paul delivers a massive shock. Not only are you sinners in equal measure with the Gentiles, but your law cannot save you. In fact, he will prove that it was never even designed to save you. The law is not a ladder, the law is a mirror. Now it doesn’t say that here, but I’m using that as an illustration. They thought of it as a ladder, commandment number one, commandment number two, commandment number three, you climb the ladder, you go to the kingdom. No, says the apostle Paul, the law is a mirror. The law is a mirror to show you how filthy your face is, but you cannot clean your face with the mirror. Once you see what you are in the mirror, you go to another source for cleansing, the water in the sink. See what he says in verse 19?
Who was the law given to? It was given to the Jews. What the law says, it says to those who are under the law. That’s the Jews. And then he gives his verdict. Every mouth is stopped and the whole world is guilty before God. You say, hang on a minute. That’s a bit of slate of hand there. He’s gone from saying that the Jews are under the law and now the whole world’s guilty. How does that work? Well, what he’s saying is this.
God gave the law to the Jews and they couldn’t keep it. And if this prototype nation, this test nation, this on probation nation, if it had the law and the profits and the covenants and the promises, and it couldn’t keep the law, then the whole world’s guilty. It doesn’t matter about the rest. It’s not gonna be any different result.
So then he says in verse 20, And this was like a thunder clap. You know, when you have lightning, you can tell how far away it is because there’s so many seconds between it and the thunder. Have you ever been right next to thunder when it just goes, the light flashes and then it goes kaboom? Well, verse 20 is kaboom. By the deeds of the law, you cannot be justified, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. You have been completely wrong. You’ve been looking to the law as a means of salvation, but it’s actually a means of condemnation.
Why do you have a straight ruler? Because if I draw a line on a board and put a straight ruler next to it, I immediately see how wonky my line is. Why do I have a mirror? We’ve already said, to show me my dirty face, so that I might wash in a mirror. All the law does is show you how sinful you are. So if the law cannot save us, and if we’re guilty, what hope do we have? We lift the gavel, we pronounce everybody guilty, and we’re about to pass sentence, and then the judge intervenes.
Verse 21, but now, The righteousness of God, a righteousness from God, without the law is manifested. Hello? I can get a righteous standing from God, a righteousness without keeping the law? How is this even possible? But that’s the glory of the gospel. This is what it’s all about.
You see, the law gives you a knowledge of sin, but the gospel remits your sin and declares you righteous. The law demands righteousness from you. The gospel gives righteousness to you. See the difference? The gospel tells a man what he, sorry, the law tells a man what he must do for God. The gospel tells a man what God has done for him. The law says work hard to keep me and you will live. The gospel says you can never work hard enough, but eternal life is a free gift. Now, let’s just get into these final verses. Look to verse 21.
See that word righteousness? And it’s mentioned again in verse 22, righteousness. Then a bit later on, you get the word righteousness in verse 25, and you get it in verse 26. So two mentions at the beginning of the paragraph in verse 21 and 22, and then two mentions at the end of the paragraph in verse 25 and 26. Now we must distinguish between these two. So the first two mentions of righteousness mean one thing, and the second two mentions of righteousness mean another thing. Now the first two mentions of righteousness mean a right standing before God. You say, what is a right standing?
I don’t even understand the idea. Well, if I am guilty and have been found to be so, I stand before God in a wrong standing. I stand condemned. I’m on a wrong footing. I’m in a wrong standing. I’m in a wrong place. God is just. I am unholy. I’m in a wrong standing. So what do I need? I need a right standing. I need a right position before God. I need to be put into a new legal status. I need to be justified. That is, I need to be cleared of my guilt and I need to be declared righteous by the judge.
So that he says, yes, you’ve been found to be guilty, but I now declare you to be righteous. This is the righteousness that God has revealed He’s revealed that you can have a righteous standing freely, without keeping the law, without trying or doing your best. Wow. And he says in verse 21, here’s how you get it.
The righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe. For there’s no difference. Anybody can be saved. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, so we can all be justified freely by His grace.
Now notice it doesn’t say the righteousness of Christ. You will never find that expression anywhere in the Bible, the righteousness of Christ. Now that doesn’t mean that the Lord Jesus Christ wasn’t righteous. But when you get saved, you are not imputed and given the righteousness of Christ.
Now this is what the reformers teach. This is what you’ll read in Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, and in the modern day, R.C. Sproul, Alistair Begg, and I believe all these people are born again Christians and will all be happy in heaven. I’m not suggesting that for a moment. But what they believe is this, the reformed people believe, that Jesus lived a perfect life, of course we all believe that, but their idea is Jesus lived the perfect life that we cannot We cannot live, he lived that on behalf of us vicariously.
And so when we get saved, God takes that perfect life of Jesus and he sort of wraps us up in it, in a robe. And we get clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Now we’ve heard that so much, and it is in our hymns, but it’s not in the Bible. When you get saved, God does not take the perfect life of Jesus and credit it to your account.
What it says here is, but now, the righteousness of God, or it can be translated, a righteousness from God. So it’s not God’s personal holiness, or justness, or fairness, or Jesus’ personal holiness, or justness, or fairness. It is a right standing from God. So what it’s saying is this, when you get saved, you are credited with a righteous position before God, even though you’re not righteous. God declares you to be righteous. He gives you a righteous standing that is not naturally yours.
And so he goes on to describe it. Look at it. Verse 21. It comes without the law. It was witnessed by the prophets. It’s been manifested through the cross. Verse 22. It comes by faith. Verse 22, again, it’s for everybody, Jew and Gentile. Verse 23, it’s for everybody because everybody has the same need. Verse 24, it’s free because it’s through grace. Verse 24, it’s through redemption. In other words, you get this right standing only because Christ has paid the price on the cross. So that’s what happened when you got saved.
You were justified by faith. Justification doesn’t make you righteous, it declares you to be righteous. You say, I don’t feel righteous and I still commit sin now and again. That’s not the point. You were given, the moment you place faith in Christ, a righteous standing before God, independent of anything you’ve ever done before or after you are saved. It is not based on anything you say or do or think. by putting your faith in Jesus Christ, it is imputed to you on the basis of what Christ has done 2,000 years ago.
You say, well, I’ve got a big problem, Mr. Penfold, because in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy chapter 25, God tells judges, Israeli judges that when they’re sitting in the bench and they’ve got a case in front of them, there’s absolutely something they must never do. They must never, they must always condemn the wicked and never justify them. They should justify the righteous.
So let’s say a person comes into court and somebody says, he stole three chickens off me last week. And then we bring witnesses in and CCTV and all this and we discover he never did it at all. So he then justifies the innocence. You’re free, you’re free to go. And then a man comes in and he’s stolen a Chevrolet off his next door neighbor and he’s proved to be guilty. And so the judge says, I condemn you as guilty. So that’s what a judge is supposed to do. What a judge cannot do is condemn the man who didn’t steal the chickens and free the man who really did steal the Chevrolet.
You must never, ever, ever, ever condemn an innocent man. You must never, ever, ever justify a guilty man. So here’s God in Deuteronomy 25 saying, you are not allowed to justify guilty people. And you’ve just spent three chapters telling us, this is now God’s new plan of getting everybody to heaven, to justify wicked people. So then the Bible contradicts itself. You’ve got God saying, you mustn’t justify wicked people. And now he himself is saying, I’m willing to justify as many wicked people as I can. You say, how do you square that circle? Well, God has already squared that circle.
You see, in the gospel that we preach, the wicked person is found guilty. And in the gospel that we preach, the wicked person is condemned. You know, before I was saved, I sat in meetings and I felt guilty and I was guilty. And preachers used to preach, he that believeth not is condemned already. Well, that’s true. And the gospel that was being preached was telling me, I’m guilty, I’m condemned.
Say, right, well, what else? Well, not only in the gospel are we found guilty and condemned, but a very, very heavy price is exacted because of our guilt. Say, is it? I thought the gospel was a happy message and we all come to the meeting and we all go home thinking, well, wonderful, praise the Lord, we’re all saved.
Now you’re saying that there’s going to be a heavy price exacted for my guilt. Well, where would that leave me? Well, this is what God did. He exacted the heavy price from his own sinless, holy son on the cross. in my place. He carried out the justice. He carried out the sentence. He exacted every charge, but not of me, of my substitute, the Lord Jesus.
And because I believed that, and because I believed in Him, God counted my faith. for righteousness. You believe in my son? You accept the work that he’s done? You’re satisfied in it? You accept it by faith that you’re a guilty sinner but Jesus died for you?
I now clear your guilt and I credit to your account a righteous standing that you could never have earned in a million years. So in verse 25 and 26, we get the other meaning of righteousness. You see, some people look at a scheme like that, I’m going to go a couple of minutes over time. Some people look at a scheme like that and they think, that’s not fair. That’s not fair.
What about the people that lived before Jesus was born? What about them? What about their sins? It’s not fair that the thief on the cross just repents at the last minute and he gets saved. That’s not fair. Well, God says it is fair. Look at verse 25 at the end. He declares his righteousness. Now he’s talking about God’s fairness. For what? The remission of sins in the past. This is Abraham. This is David. This is Rahab. This is all the people in the Old Testament that got saved.
And God forgave them. And somebody says, on what basis? Because it’s just you wait. A.D. 33, there’s the basis there. The Old Testament saints sins were forgiven looking forward to the cross. And we are forgiven looking backward to the cross. And God now has declared his fairness.
Imagine you knocking on the door of heaven. And you’re about to enter in, the door opens, and you say, I want to come in, I’m saved, and the devil’s there on your right hand. And he says, you can’t let him in. And the angel says, why not? He’s a sinner. He’s guilty of gross sin against God. You can’t let him in. He has to go to hell. Well, yes, naturally speaking, we should go to hell.
But the angel can say, well, according to the book of life, on September the 7th, 1977, that man believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, though he is guilty, his guilt has all been taken by another, and the price has already been paid. He does not need to go to hell. Come on in.
That’s how he finishes in verse 26. This is how God leaves himself. This is an utter and absolute miracle of theology. A miracle of divine wisdom. That by getting you to heaven, God has not compromised his character. He hasn’t swept all your sins under the carpet. He is just, fair, righteous, absolutely just. And at the same time, he lets you into heaven. He’s the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus. And no objection can ever be raised against you being in heaven if you’ve trusted Christ.
That’s why we’re eternally secure. Not because we read our Bibles every day and try to be a good Christian. We’re eternally secure because the judge of the universe has declared us guilty and condemned his son in our place. And because the sinless Saviour died, my sinful soul is counted free. For God the just is satisfied, so look on Him and pardon me. May the Lord bless his work, shall we pray.