Romans Chapter 3 (part 4)

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Quick note for new subscribers: We're in the middle of Romans right now. If you just joined us, you might feel like you're walking into the middle of a movie. You are. Here's what I recommend:

Keep reading below if you want to start where we are (Romans 3:21-23).

Or go back to the beginning - [Here's the intro to Romans], and [here's the full archive] so you can start from Chapter 1

Either way works. I just don't want you to feel lost.

Before diving into my notes, I encourage you to read Romans 3:21-23 first (or the whole chapter if you have time).

I include all the Scripture below, but there’s something about sitting with the whole chapter first — giving yourself room to be curious.

What catches you off guard?
What doesn't make sense?
Where is that?
Who's that?
Why?

Those questions will make the notes hit deeper.

"When disciples followed a rabbi, they followed him closely so they would never be out of his sight, never be someplace where they couldn’t hear him speak. They followed him so closely that his sandals often kicked up dust."

May you be covered in His dust.

To the saints, grace and peace.

Paul has spent three chapters trying to kill you.

Not literally. But close.

He's been building a case. Methodically and without mercy.

Gentiles.
Moral people.
Religious people.
Jews.

One by one he's walked them into the courtroom. And the verdict has been the same every single time.

Guilty.

No exceptions.

“None righteous. No. Not one.”

And last week he drove the final nail.

“Every mouth stopped.”
“The whole world accountable.”

Nothing you've ever done or could ever do will make you righteous before God.

For twenty-one weeks we’ve been walking through the first three chapters of Romans.
And Paul has been burying us.

The air is thin.
It’s hard to breathe.

Today we’re covering three verses.
Just three.

But they’re the reason Paul wrote this letter and they’re the reason Martin Luther started a Reformation.

On August 5, 2010, a copper mine in Chile collapsed and 33 miners were trapped 700 meters (2,300 ft) underground with no way out.

That’s almost half a mile straight down.

For seventeen days the surface was silent while rescue workers drilled desperately into the earth not knowing if anyone was even alive down there.

Then a drill broke through.

When they pulled it back up, a note was attached.

Estamos bien en el Refugio los 33.
We are well in the Refuge. All 33.

They were alive but they were still 700 meters underground and completely dependent on whatever came from outside. They couldn't dig their way out.

69 days after the collapse, one by one, they climbed into a rescue capsule called the Fénix 2 and came up into the light. There was no version of this story where 33 men dig their way out from 700 meters underground. The only thing they could do was survive long enough for the rescue to reach them.

That's where Paul has had us for twenty-one weeks. Underground with no way out, no religious effort, no moral achievement, nothing we could ever do to get ourselves any closer to the surface.

And then Paul stops.

“But now…”

Just two words.

Paul didn't write "however."
He didn't write "despite all of this."

He wrote but now.

And those two words just changed… everything.

Think about what came before them. Three chapters of wrath, condemnation, and guilt. Every defense dismantled. The whole world standing before a holy God with absolutely nothing to say.

That was the world before "but now."

Paul wrote those two words and the universe shifted.

This is the hinge of the entire Bible. Everything before the cross on one side.
Everything after it on the other.

Before grace found you.
After grace found you.

Pastor Tom Ascol called them “the two most beautiful words in Scripture.” And he's right. Because you can only feel how beautiful they are if you've actually felt the weight of everything that came before them.

It's been pressing down on you.
Have you felt it?

Paul felt it too.
Which is why he didn't rush to verse 21.

When Paul says "apart from the law" he's saying everything you've ever done hoping God was keeping score.

Paul just threw it all out.

This righteousness arrives from a completely different direction. It comes from God Himself reaching down and offering what the law could never produce.

Not law plus faith.
Not mostly grace with a little effort mixed in.
Not "after all you can do."
Not faith that needs your cooperation.

Apart from the law means exactly what it says.

Righteousness is not a standard God demands.
It's a gift He provides.
His own righteousness.
Offered with open hands.

Paul says the Law and the Prophets were pointing to this the whole time.
This righteousness didn’t appear out of nowhere.
The Old Testament had been whispering about it for centuries.

Habakkuk saw it 600 years before the cross. “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4)

Isaiah saw it 700 years before Jesus. "By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities." (Isaiah 53:11)

Isaiah didn't see the hill or the soldiers or the sign above His head. But he saw what it would accomplish. Hundreds of years before it happened.

The rescue was planned before anyone was trapped.

But how do you receive it?

After twenty-one weeks in the first three chapters of Romans, this one verse brings me to my knees.

I want to grab everyone I know and everyone I don't know by the shoulders, open a Bible and point to this single line.

Not through effort.
Not through religious performance.
Not through being good enough or trying hard enough or showing up consistently enough.

Through faith.
Just faith.

Faith isn’t a feeling. It's not the absence of doubt. It's not a spiritual experience you have to manufacture and hope it's real enough to count.

Faith is the hand that reaches out and takes the gift.

The miners didn't build the Fénix 2.
They didn't drill the shaft.
They didn't engineer the rescue.
They climbed into the capsule and trusted it to bring them up.

That's faith.

You don't produce righteousness. You receive it. The moment you stop trying to climb out of the mine on your own and trust the One who came down for you.

That's the whole thing.

That's what Paul’s been desperate for us to see.

The NIV says it this way: "There is no difference between Jew and Gentile."

Both translations are saying the same thing.

All.

No advantage for the one who grew up in church over the one who walked in for the first time last Sunday. No advantage for the one who's read the Bible cover to cover over the one who can't find Romans without the table of contents.

All.

Everyone comes to this the same way.
Empty handed.
By faith.

No distinction.

Most people read verse 23 and hear: “everyone does bad things sometimes.” And move on.

But that verse is doing more than saying you sinned.

Paul’s not just talking about your behavior. He's talking about what you were made for.

Go back to Genesis 1.

You were created in the image of God. To reflect His glory. To carry it. To display it. To live your life in a way that when people look at you they catch a glimpse of Him.

That's what was lost.

Not just a clean record.
The thing you were made for.

You've been falling short of that your whole life. In ways you can name and in ways you've never even noticed.

But falling short doesn't just mean you broke the rules. It means you became less than you were made to be.

That's a human tragedy.

And Paul puts it right here in Romans 3. Right before justification. Because Paul needs you to feel more than just guilt. He needs you to feel the loss.

The gospel doesn't just fix your record.

It restores what was lost.

You came to this newsletter to see Scripture through a lens you've never looked through before.

To walk so near to Him that you're covered in the dust kicked up by His sandals.

But Paul just stopped you right here in Romans 3 and said this:

You're not just covered in His dust.
You're covered in His righteousness.

Not sort of.
Not on your best days.

Completely.

The Judge has spoken and He will never say anything different about you.

I love you,
George

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George Sisneros is a full-time missionary in Guatemala and the founder of Ordinary Missionaries and the El Rosario Christian Academy for Boys.

He’s been married to his wife, Vonda, for 27 years. He’s a father to nine children, five adopted.

In 2024, George and his wife expanded to Cuba, joining forces with nine pastors committed to transforming lives through the gospel.

You can get George’s newest digital book, Uncovering Scripture: The Gospel of Luke HERE.