Romans 3:21-24 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Jesus Saves From What?

People do not understand the GOOD NEWS until they first hear the BAD NEWS. I used to see bumper stickers that said “Jesus Saves”, to which I’d reply sarcastically, “From What?” Jesus saves from what? What do we need to be saved from? What do I need to be saved from?

In our opening text God tells us that “Jesus saves”, and shares the wonderful Gospel of Christ. But we skipped the introduction. Before the Apostle shares the Gospel or the Good News, God through him gives us the Bad News.

The “Good News” is not good until you hear the bad news.

Romans 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

“AS IT IS WRITTEN”. The Bad News is not the Apostle’s opinion, nor my opinion, but God’s judgment. When Jesus Christ was giving us the very words of God (John 6:68-69), He never gave us His opinion. Jesus always used “IT IS WRITTEN”. Jesus referred to the Word of God that God Himself gave to the Jews. As Paul writes “IT IS WRITTEN”, he is not just quoting from one section of the Old Testament. He is quoting various texts from the Old Testament Scripture:

Romans 3:10-12 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. [from Psalm 14:1-3, 53:1-3; Ecclesiastes 7:20]

Romans 3:13 Their throat is an open sepulchre {grave}; with their tongues they have used deceit [from Psalm 5:9] the poison of asps is under their lips: [from Psalm 140:3]

Romans 3:14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: [from Psalm 10:7]

Romans 3:15-17 Their feet are swift to shed blood: 16 Destruction and misery are in their ways: 17 And the way of peace have they not known: [from Isaiah 59:7-8]

Romans 3:18 There is no fear of God before their eyes. [from Psalm 36:1]

Why this extensive, exhaustive series of quotes from the Scripture, the old Testament Word of God? The Old Testament as Paul is writing this is the only Bible available. The testimony of the only Bible is that people are dead, spiritually dead, totally unable to please God on their own.

We are born dead men – and women – walking.

When the preacher tells people they need Jesus, their response is often:

“I’ll come to God when I’m worthy, when I clean up my life”.

“IT IS WRITTEN by God”

There is none righteous, no, not one

You can never clean up your act, or make yourself right enough for God. Unrighteousness is ingrained into your very soul from birth. You’ll never be worthy, never be able to fix yourself. From infant to ancient of days, within our power we are not righteous. The preacher tells the sinner this. Their response?

“I don’t understand God nor this salvation you are speaking of. Once I understand it, I’ll consider it.”

“IT IS WRITTEN by God in His Holy Word”

There is none that understandeth…

You’ll never understand God. The dead cannot understand the living. The preacher can explain the mechanics of salvation, how when you call on Christ Jesus to save you, God the Holy Spirit will enter your soul and cause your New Birth. The preacher can explain things that the Theologians talk about, the Doctrines of Salvation, Sanctification, and Glorification. But no one ever fully understands, will not even close to understanding, until you come to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith.

We cannot understand cancer or Alzheimer’s – how can the dead understand the Living God?

The preacher begs the sinner to come to Jesus, but the lost say

“When I feel I really need God, I’ll seek God out. But I’m doing all right at the moment.”

“IT IS WRITTEN by God”

there is NONE that seeketh after God. They are ALL gone out of the way.

Sinners blinded by sin do not chase after the Savior. No one is born seeking Jesus. Jesus said:

John 3:19 … light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil …

Death runs toward death. Sin toward sin. The sin nature in us pursues darkness rather than light, and we run from God, minimize God, ignore God. If you wait till you “need” God you’ll never find God, but you’ll find hell and damnation!

The preacher bids the wanderer to come to Jesus, but instead they say:

“I’ll come to God when I can give Him something, do something good for Him.”

Once more “IT IS WRITTEN by God”:

they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Though God loves every creature that He has ever given life, there is nothing good we can do for God in our own power. It is true that once a person is saved by faith in Christ that they should seek to do the good, seek to sow righteousness, this empowerment comes only by being first bound to Christ. The Lord Jesus taught …

John 15:5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

Our every work apart from Christ are profitless, vain, useless. We cannot in our flesh do anything profitable to God. Jesus must be in it. Our faith must be in Him.

In the Old Testament Israel promised to obey God’s Law (Exodus 24:7). “All that the Lord has said will we do, and be obedient”. Yet they could not. Their promises meant nothing, for their hearts needed to be changed – as it is with us all. This is why God says “IT IS WRITTEN”:

Their throat is an open {grave}; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

Jesus said in Matthew 15:19, “Out of THE HEART proceed evil thoughts … false witnesses … blasphemies … which defile a person”. The heart we are born with is broken. We need another heart, a heart cleansed by Jesus. Because we are born with broken hearts, our bodies head toward wrong places.

“IT IS WRITTEN by God”

Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known

Oh Beloved, we all need a heart that only God can give us. God promised in the Old Testament that He would bring in a New Covenant. He said:

Jeremiah 31:31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant … 33 After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 … they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

The Old Covenant of the Old Testament gave us a Law that diagnosed sin. But the Old Covenant did not give life to the spiritually dead. It did not change the heart of the person. The Bible says that God’s Old Covenant people, Israel, did not truly fear God.

There is no fear of God before their eyes

Because their heart needed to be changed. So God sent His Only Begotten Son Jesus to this earth to be the “Mediator of the New Covenant, to the Blood of sprinkling, that speaks of better things” (Hebrews 12:24). The ceremonies and sacrifices of the Law of God temporarily covered sin. But these animal sacrifices did not save, because God Himself must save us.

God Himself must bear our sins. This is what God did through Jesus.

The Law Diagnosed Sin, But Did Not
COVER It Nor CORRECT It

Romans 3:21-23 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God…

Having given us the BAD NEWS of the Old Testament, the Apostle says But now. Under the Old Covenant God gave us the Law to show our need for Him. People are not naturally righteous, and cannot make themselves righteous. We need Jesus. We need a new heart.

Illustrate: I was putting gas in my car the other day when I noticed a bright red and yellow sticker on the pump. The sticker read, “No need to pre-pay! We trust you!”. I thought to myself, “That’s nice – they trust me. How rare in today’s world.” Yet as I continued to put gas in the car I noticed another brightly colored red and yellow sign attached to a post next to the pump. This sign read, “Warning, you are under video surveillance. A video camera has recorded your license plate as well as your face. Drive offs will be prosecuted.” If they really trusted the customer there would be no video camera, nor would there be a need for one. If people were inherently trustworthy our world would be getting better and better, not worst and worst. The bad news that no one wants to hear is that we are born into this world with corrupt hearts. God repeats His first “IT IS WRITTEN” we studied today,

Romans 3:10 … There is none righteous, no, not one …

Since there are none righteous, God says:

Romans 3:23 … all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God

We all are born into this world with damaged, corrupt hearts. None of us are born pleasing to God. So how can we fix this. We cannot – but God can. We can heed the warning of the Law:

Romans 3:20 by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

You cannot make yourself right with God “BY THE DEEDS OF THE LAW”. Animal sacrifices do not work. As a pastor, I am always getting cultic stuff through the mail. I came home from Church last Sunday to find a copy of a book entitled “The Great Controversy” leaned up against my front door. This is a book from the cult called “Seventh Day Adventists”. The Seventh Day Adventists believe (and Ellen G. White their founder teaches)

“every time we turn away from the true Sabbath {Saturday}, we turn our backs upon the law of God, and our faces toward the false gods”.

Yet God’s Word through His Apostles says:

Colossians 2:16-17 (KJV) Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: 17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

The Church worships on Sunday because it was the first day of the week that Jesus rose from the grave (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). The early Church had services on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2).

As God brought LIGHT into creation on the FIRST DAY (Genesis 1:5), God brought the LIGHT of Jesus from the grave on the FIRST DAY.

Beloved, “by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin”. The Law of God cannot save us, but diagnoses our need for salvation.

Preach this: Every cult that arises – be it Seventh Day Adventist, Catholicism, Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness – always, like the Pharisees, tells us to go to the Law of God and save ourselves. But the Gospel is to HEED the Law and it’s diagnostic, to REPENT and turn fully to JESUS CHRIST for salvation.

The Law Is Not Our Savior.
God Is Our Savior.

Romans 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

The Law never promised to save us. God has always been the Savior. The Scripture testifies of this:

2 Samuel 22:3 (KJV) The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my savior…

Isaiah 43:11 (KJV) I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no savior.

Isaiah 45:15, 21 (KJV) … O God of Israel, the Savior. 21 … there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Savior; there is none beside me.

Hosea 13:4 (KJV) I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no savior beside me.

There is no Savior but God. We cannot save ourselves. We are hopelessly lost and undone according to the diagnostic of the Law. What is our Solution? It is Jesus Christ. When He was born in Bethlehem, the GOOD NEWS was:

Luke 2:11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

As the Gospel was preached, the Apostles preached the Law as the diagnostic, but Jesus Christ alone as the Savior. They said:

Acts 5:31 (KJV) {Jesus} hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.

Repent and believe. To whom is Jesus offered? Read again with me:

Romans 3:22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

The Calvinist says, “God offers the salvation of Christ to the ELECT, to His Chosen”. I agree. But the Bible says that the offer of Christ is not just to some, but TO ALL.

Salvation by faith in Christ is offered unto all. There can be no charge leveled at God that He was unfair in the offering of salvation. All have sinned, missing the mark of God’s glory. Sin is universal but Jesus Christ is the Universal or Sovereign Remedy for what ails you. Jesus is offered unto all, and I pray that you all accept Him as Lord and Savior! God made atonement or a satisfactory payment for sin through the Cross of Calvary and through the terrible suffering of our Lord Jesus. Hear the words of the Master:

John 11:26 And WHOSOEVER liveth and believeth in Me shall never die . Believest thou this?

There are none excluded. God offers salvation through faith in Christ to WHOSOEVER. Without Christ you are dead in your trespasses and sins. When you die you go to a place called The Second Death or the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:14). Those who have accepted Christ as Savior are priests of God and of Christ (Revelation 20:6). Life belongs with life, and death with death. Those who belong to Jesus rule and reign with Him and those who do not belong to Jesus belong to death.

Listen Beloved – those who die to self now and surrender to God in Christ – not “almost” but surely – shall never see death. That Living Relationship that we call “salvation” is offered to whosoever will – it is unto all.

What effect does this true salvation have on every person who believes? Jesus said:

John 3:15-16 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. (16) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life .

There is payment for sin, eternal payment, for whosoever believes in Him. But something else occurs at the point of salvation. You Who believe in Him are radically changed. Christ’s payment on Calvary not only satisfies God (1 John 2:2), but also became the means by which we became a Divine Work in progress (Ephesians 2:10).

The Saved Are Changed By Jesus

Why do you think Jesus healed so many people while He walked on this earth? Why do you think “The blind received their sight, and the lame walked, the lepers were cleansed, and the deaf made to hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Matthew 11:5). It is to show us that

An encounter with Jesus is a life changing experience.

Jesus said in John 12:46, “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness”. Jesus finds you dead, lost, sick, broken, in need of a new heart. But Jesus does not leave you where He finds you. Jesus saves you from spiritual death and eternal damnation.

A far better preacher than I, C.H. Spurgeon, wrote:

“Dost thou believe that Jesus is the Christ? If so, thou art born of God. If thou hast cast thyself, sink or swim, on Him, then art thou saved. … Jesus Christ has taken my poor guilty soul ever since I believed in Him, and has wrapped around me the blood-red flag of His atoning sacrifice, and before God can destroy me or any other soul that is wrapped in the atonement, He must insult His Son and dishonor this sacrifice, and that He never will do, blessed be His name.”

Romans 3:24 Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Grace is undeserved. Grace is unmerited. Jesus Christ died on Calvary to REDEEM us from a just eternal damnation. Jesus Christ rose from the Grave to REDEEM us from being the walking dead, and to bring us into the family of God.

If you are a Christian, the best is yet to come. I close with:

1 John 3:1-3 (ESV) See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

If you have not received Christ as Lord and Savior, I beg you, do so this very day. There is no salvation in keeping the Law. There is only salvation by receiving Him Who loved you, and loves you still. May God the Holy Spirit draw you to Jesus. Amen.