The central message of Romans is grace through faith alone. In order to understand this grace, procured through the atoning work of Jesus Christ, we must gain an understanding of the history of mankind, the holiness of God, and his sovereign plan to reconcile both. We begin in Genesis.
God had created the universe. He was pleased with his creation, until those he created to bear his image and have dominion over the earth disobeyed him. Sin came into the world and God’s holiness and perfection could not bear it. His wrath bore down on his beloved creatures, resulting in their banishment from his presence and from the paradise in and over which he had placed them (Genesis 1-3). Adam and Eve fell and took every bit of creation down with them. Ever since, mankind has walked in enmity with God (Romans 5:12).
With each subsequent generation, man became increasingly wicked. So God wiped out his creation, save for a few righteous remnants, Noah and company (Genesis 6). Noah’s clan started over, and although some followed God, most, once again, went astray.
God then chose a select group of people and made a covenant with them. This select group were the Hebrews, later known as the Israelites, then the Jews. The sign of the covenant, strangely enough, was circumcision (Genesis 17). Circumcision was an outward sign of an inward commitment, and preceded the giving of the law to Moses (Exodus 19-20).
From Genesis 17 until Christ’s resurrection, the Jews were under a covenant of works. In other words, favor with God was achieved first through circumcision, then by a complex system of rules, regulations, and rituals, known as the Law. The Law was established to reveal man’s sin juxtaposed with God’s holiness, and demanded that sacrifices be made regularly in order to atone for the many, many sins (intentional and unintentional) of the people.
In the course of history, God, ever sovereign and ever long suffering, demonstrated his love to the Jews again and again by reaching out to draw them back to himself. He sent prophets to encourage, to rebuke, and to warn them. Though they repeatedly broke his Law, God repeatedly forgave them and brought them back into his favor. The history of the Israelites is one of cyclical leaving and returning to the God who loved them and chose them for his own.
Unjust Plan or Beautiful Mystery?
So why would a God, who claims he is love, create creatures for himself who he knew full well would turn from, and on, him? And why, knowing that, would he unleash his terrible wrath on those creatures, as if they were to blame? God says he is just, but this doesn’t seem just at all!
Paul, in Romans 3:5, calls this a “human argument.” He confirms in verse seven that some argued, “…why am I still condemned as a sinner?” Left to our dim-witted understanding, this plan of God’s seems cruel. It is only through the Holy Spirit, given as counsel, that we can understand and accept this strange and wonderful plan of his.
The Law was never intended to bring salvation. It was given specifically to make us conscious of sin, so that we would see our unrighteousness in light of God’s holiness. This in preparation for the coming of Christ, because without knowledge and awareness of our sin, we would never see a need for a Savior, thus making Christ’s sacrifice void of meaning. In his death, Christ became a “righteousness…apart from the law” (Romans 3:21), because the Law was fulfilled through and only in him. So those who, by faith, believe in the true purpose of his death and resurrection become righteous and blameless, as if man had never fallen. In Christ, human beings are restored, so to speak, to their factory settings!
Romans 3:25 says, “God presented (Christ) as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” To atone is to agree, or be in accordance. This is the first part. Secondly, it is to “stand as an equivalent, to make reparation, amends, or satisfaction for an offense or a crime, by which reconciliation is procured between the offended and the offending parties.” To atone is to “expiate or appease.” To expiate is to perform some “act by which (the offended party’s) wrath is appeased, and his forgiveness is secured.” (Webster)
Even the best among us are steeped in sin. Though God’s heart is, to its core, compassionate, his holiness dictates that he exercise his righteous wrath on sinners because he cannot abide sin. The Law, given by God to elucidate that sin, says that an atoning sacrifice must be made to appease God’s wrath and bring us into accord with him once more. And what does that atonement look like? In a word, bloody. God, in his peculiar sovereignty, requires blood for atonement of sins.
This is the beautiful mystery.
Reflect
In Leviticus 16, God instructs Aaron how exactly to offer sacrifices for his sin and for the sin of Israel. It involves bulls and goats and lots of blood.
Read the following Scriptures:
Did you pay attention to the incredible and peculiar detail with which God instructs Aaron in Leviticus? The book of Leviticus explains God’s requirements for the Israelites to have fellowship with him. Christ fulfills those requirements once for all through his bloody death on the cross.
Is Christ the goat in Leviticus that was slain for a sin offering to the Lord, or is he the scapegoat released into the desert? Explain your answer.
Read John 6:53-56. Then swing back to Leviticus 17:10-12. Why would Jesus tell his followers to drink his blood if he knew that eating blood was forbidden in his own Law? Imagine what that sounded like to his Jewish hearers! What is the true meaning of “eat my flesh and drink my blood?” (Refer to John 6:35 as a hint.)
This atonement we are reading about is given freely and is not earned in any way. Let that sink into your heart and settle in your mind. In Romans 4:4-5, God says, “Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.”
Our only role in compelling God to look on us as blameless is to accept the gift! That’s it. When Christ asks us to drink his blood and eat his flesh, he is asking us to accept his gift. He has already paid for it. We only have to believe and accept it!
On the surface, working for the Lord in order to receive obligatory payment sounds noble. But how much would we have to work to satisfy a holy, perfect God? Some of us (present company excluded) are good, but not that good! God knew this all along. So he built into his plan a way for us to be with him and not die.
Read each of the following scriptures, paraphrase them, and discuss how this confirms that salvation is a free gift through faith in Christ, and nothing we can earn on our own.
Read the following Scriptures:
What precedes obedience to Christ, and who initiates our desire to belong to him?
Read Romans 1:20 and John 1:3. Why are humans who don’t believe in God “without excuse?”
Pray
Dear Father, thank you for your Spirit, who explains this beautiful mystery to us, and allows us to see it as a just and perfect plan created from the beginning of time by a just and perfect God. Help us to walk in obedience to you and your Word. Help us to relax into your plan, and give us a heart to love you more and more. Amen.