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- Romans Chapter 3 (part 5)
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Keep reading below if you want to start where we are (Romans 3:24-26).
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
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Before diving into my notes, I encourage you to read Romans 3:24-26 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.
Two and a half chapters.
That's how long Paul’s been walking you toward a cliff.
Not to push you off, but to show you there was nowhere left to go. No ledge to grab. No path back. Just the edge and the air below it and the slow realization that you were never going to save yourself.
You're a sinner and you know it. Every defense you thought you had, Paul took apart piece by piece until there was nothing left to say.
And if you've been with us since the beginning, you've been carrying that.
But today is different.
Paul’s stepping back from the indictment. Not because he's finished with hard truth. He's not. But right here, right now, he has something else to say.
Take a breath.
Because what Paul is about to say in the next three verses has been called the heart of the book of Romans. The epicenter of the Christian faith. The reason Jesus came. The reason Paul wrote. The reason you’re sitting here today still breathing and still reading and still, somehow, hoping.
Are you ready?
And are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Justified is a courtroom word. It’s always been a courtroom word.
The Greek is dikaioo. To declare righteous. To acquit. A verdict rendered by a judge in favor of the man standing before him.
Moses used it fifteen hundred years before Paul ever put pen to parchment.
Deuteronomy 25:1. “If there is a dispute between men and they come into court and the judges decide between them, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty.”
That word. Acquitting.
That's the word. In the Hebrew it's tsadaq. The same root as righteousness. Moses wrote it in Hebrew. Paul picked it up in Greek. It’s the same word with the same meaning.
It’s a verdict with no appeals.
But here’s the problem.
Proverbs 17:15. “He who justifies the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.”
A just judge can’t acquit the guilty.
Not without corrupting himself.
Not without betraying everything justice means.
So how does God justify you?
How does He look at your actual record and say “righteous” without becoming corrupt himself?
And are justified by his grace as a gift.
His grace is a gift.
Grace as a gift means exactly what it says. Not grace that gets you most of the way there and then waits for you to do your part.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. Not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
“If it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.” (Romans 11:6)
The second you bring something to the table, it stops being grace. It becomes a transaction. And a transaction isn’t a gift.
Imagine you hand someone a birthday present.
They take it. Look at it. And then reach for their wallet.
You'd stop them, right? "What are you doing?"
"I just want to cover part of it."
"It's a gift."
"I know but I feel like I should contribute something."
That's not receiving a gift.
And that's exactly what we do with grace when we think our obedience helps complete it.
Some say we are justified by faith but not by faith alone. That salvation is grace plus our part. We receive it and then maintain it through obedience.
Paul wrote it this way:
Not by works of the law.
Not by works of the law.
No one will be justified by works of the law.
In Galatians 2:16 he said it three times in one verse.
Wait. What about James 2:17? “Faith without works is dead.”
James isn't contradicting Paul. They're answering different questions.
Paul is answering how you are justified before God.
James is answering how you know if your faith is real.
Paul is describing the moment of justification.
James is describing what justification produces afterward.
A tree doesn't grow apples to become an apple tree.
It grows apples because it already is one.
Spurgeon said it better than I ever could.
The night of the Passover. Two houses.
In one house is a man who’s calm. He’s confident. Certain even. He understands exactly what's happening outside and he has no doubt whatsoever.
But there's no blood on the door.
In the other house a man is trembling. He has a million questions. Did we do this right? Is this enough?
He can barely sleep.
But… there’s blood on the door.
When the angel of death passed through Egypt it didn't stop to measure anyone's confidence. It didn't check what was in their hearts.
It looked at the door.
God said when I see the blood I will pass over you.
So which house was safe?
Not the one with the confident man.
The house with the blood.
It's not your faith that saves you. It's not how strong it is.
It's
the
blood
of
Christ.
Faith just rests under it.
We get zero credit.
Salvation belongs entirely to Him.
Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
That word.
Redemption.
Paul uses it like you should already know what it means. And if you grew up in church you probably think you do.
But go back further than Sunday school.
A young widow from a foreign country gleaning at the edges of a field that didn't belong to her. Picking up scraps. Leftovers. The grain that fell and nobody wanted. She had followed her mother-in-law back to a land that wasn't hers, to a people that weren't her people, to a God she was still learning to trust.
Her name was Ruth.
She didn't belong there. She knew it and the workers knew it.
But the owner of the field noticed her.
His name was Boaz. He was wealthy and respected. The kind of man who had no reason to look twice at a Moabite widow at the edges of his property.
He looked anyway.
In Israel there was a law. If a woman's husband died without leaving a son, a close male relative could step in. He could buy back the land and restore her name. He could bring her all the way in from the edges.
He was called the go'el. The kinsman redeemer. The one who pays the price to bring you back.
There was a closer relative with first rights. He looked at the cost and walked away.
Boaz didn't.
He went to the city gate and sat down in front of the elders.
And paid.
He bought her back. All the way in. From the edges of a field she didn't belong in to the household of the man who chose her.
That's redemption.
A price paid.
A person brought all the way back from the outside.
You were Ruth.
You had no rights. There was no reason for anyone to notice you.
But someone did.
And He didn't just notice you. He went to the gate, He sat down in front of heaven itself. And He paid.
Everything.
Jesus is the better Boaz. And the price He paid wasn't land or silver.
It was His blood.
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.
Propitiation is a word most people skip over. It’s too long. Too theological. It sounds like something you'd hear in a seminary classroom and never think about again.
Don't skip it.
This is the word that explains everything. It’s the word that answers the question we asked earlier.
How does a just God acquit the guilty without becoming corrupt himself?
This is how.
Propitiation means the complete satisfaction of God's wrath.
It’s not ignoring God’s wrath, or softening it. It’s the full satisfaction of it.
I know. The word wrath makes people uncomfortable.
But Paul didn't flinch. He opened this entire letter with it. Romans 1:18. “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.”
Not was revealed. Is being revealed. Present tense. As in, right now.
Some of us grew up thinking the God of the Old Testament was angry and Jesus came to fix that. Scripture doesn't give you that option. He’s both. At the same time. A God whose holiness cannot look at sin without responding to it.
Think about what that means.
There was a cup.
The night before the cross Jesus fell on his face in a garden and said, “Father if it is possible let this cup pass from me.”
What was in that cup?
Not the nails or the crown of thorns. It wasn’t even the physical suffering of crucifixion.
It was the wrath of God.
And Jesus drank it.
Every drop.
Not reluctantly. Not because He had no choice. Willingly.
Because He loves you.
“The same way the Father loves the Son, the Son loves you.” (John 15:9.)
At the same moment on the same cross He absorbed the wrath of God and displayed the love of God.
That's propitiation.
The cup is empty.
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)
Not less condemnation. No condemnation.
None.
This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
For thousands of years people sinned and God didn't bring final judgment. He passed over it. He held back what justice demanded.
If God is truly righteous, why hasn't He judged all this sin already? Did He ignore it?
Adam disobeyed. Cain killed. Abraham lied. David committed adultery and then had the man killed to cover it up.
And God passed over it.
That word forbearance doesn't mean canceled. It means withheld.
Like a debt sitting on a ledger. Unpaid, but not forgotten.
Not because He wasn't paying attention. He was storing it. Every sin created a real moral debt and instead of collecting immediately God said I will deal with this. Just not yet.
That's divine forbearance.
That's why the cross is heavier than we tend to think. It's not just one generation's sin sitting there. It's all of human history meeting in one place.
And that's how God stays just while justifying you.
Just and the justifier. Both. At the same time.
He satisfied the standard completely in the body of His Son. The sin was paid for. Every last drop absorbed by Christ so that He could look at you and say righteous without becoming corrupt himself.
The Judge stepped down from the bench and took the sentence himself.
And then He looked at you and said righteous.
He has never once reversed a verdict rendered on the basis of the blood of His Son.
Paul just handed you the most important words you’ll ever read.
He handed you a verdict, rendered by a just God who didn't look the other way. Paid for by a kinsman who didn't have to notice you. Absorbed by a Savior who drank a cup that had your name on it.
And the promise is yours.
Not because you deserved it. Because He chose you.
The same way Boaz walked into that field with no obligation to anyone and his eyes landed on a Moabite widow picking up scraps at the edges.
He didn't have to notice her.
He noticed her anyway.
And then he went to the gate and paid everything it cost to bring her all the way in.
That's you.
He noticed.
And He paid.
Sit with that today.
Not the Greek words, or the courtroom, or the theology.
Just that.
He noticed you.
And He paid.
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.