Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 3:21-30
Before the reading of today’s text, I’d like to first read the last verse from last week’s text, which is the 20th verse of the 3rd chapter of Romans. Think of it as ‘previously, from Jerusalem’s pulpit’
20 For "no human being will be justified in his sight" by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
And now, for today, in this reading of Holy Scripture, listen for God’s word to you:
21 But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; 26 it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.
Shhhh! This is the good part!
I can almost hear it now. The story is so familiar, the children have it memorized. They’ve all heard it before and yet, each step is savored, each event recounted, each detail touched on, before moving on to the next place in the story. Heaven forbid you should skip anything, because it is all necessary. You’ll quickly be corrected if you miss even the slightest detail. Whether it is a story read to them or a familiar Disney or Veggie Tales movie, there is a purpose in the sequence.
It’s that way with all of us, isn’t it? Don’t we all have family stories that are told at most if not all gatherings and even though we may roll our eyes at the beginning of them, NOT telling them would somehow lessen the event? They don’t necessarily have to have a point, either.
Emma Key, my maternal grandmother, visited us twice while we lived in Chile, once in 1967 at my brother’s birth, and the second time in 1975, when my sister Karen went back for a visit. It was during that visit that she accompanied us to Mission Meeting, held that winter at a former monastery south of Santiago tucked into the edge of the Andes Mountains, called ‘La Leonera’ – “The Lion’s Den”
One evening at supper, the dessert was … if I remember correctly, a pudding or custard, served in a brandy … bath, I suppose you could call it … and this was brandy that hadn’t been lit on fire! So it was … um … in its natural state. Grandma Key really enjoyed the dessert. So much so that she had a second helping.
Later the next week, at the family night, the older MKs, including Karen, sang a song whose verses were made up of events that had happened that week – some of you may be familiar with the tune – ‘Boom Boom, Ain’t It Great To Be Crazy?’ … and you thought missionaries spent all their time in prayer and Bible Study …
One verse was as follows:
“It seems the thing/to do this year/is grab your partner by the ear/Allison began this fad /we think she learned it from her dad!” (At the time, Allison might have been 5)
But the one that stuck with us, and which we as a family find ourselves humming occasionally, goes like this:
“The other night we had a strong dessert/everybody ate it with a slurp/ Mrs. Key, she had a lot/ she left the room with a bippity-bop!”
It is in the stories of our families that we find comfort, a sense of identity, a connection with our past, however recent or distant it might be, however far removed we may be in time and space. It is through the telling and retelling of these stories that we reconnect with who we are, with what and who has made us who we are.
Paul, in his letter to the church in Rome, is retelling our collective family’s story, and it is one that the church has been telling and retelling throughout the almost-2,000 years since it was first told, beginning at the empty tomb.
Paul is presenting a kernel of the story in these verses. A detail piece without which the story would be incomplete, it wouldn’t sound right.
There is a purpose in the sequence Paul has used. First, he establishes that no one is better than anyone else, Jew is no better than Gentile, Gentile is no better than Jew. This is what is considered ‘the rough part’, at the beginning of the letter.
What he begins in verse 21 of chapter 3 is ‘the good part’. It is beginning here, I believe, that what has made Romans such an influential letter is beginning to be uncovered. He touches on what he made obvious earlier in verse 23 – in the NRSV the wording is (READ FROM BIBLE) ‘since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; the King James version is probably the wording by which most of us may have memorized it – (READ FROM PEW BIBLE) ‘for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
Paul is reiterating a point – we are unable, through our own righteousness, to obtain reconciliation with God. Indeed, Paul’s whole point is that even as a believing, practicing, observant, zealous Jew, there was no possibility, outside of purely having faith in Jesus Christ, through which we can regain communion with God.
So what is the good part? The good part is this: even though there was no way we were going to be able to regain that communion on our own merits, God made a way, through the sacrifice … through the atoning sacrifice, of Jesus Christ.
‘Atoning sacrifice’ is a term that makes me a little uncomfortable. For someone raised away from the practice of offering blood sacrifices in religious rituals, which would probably include most of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Christianity, I think the whole concept of sacrifice is something that is to a greater or lesser degree foreign to us.
On the surface, it is understandable enough. We can wrap our brain around the words. Webster’s New World Dictionary that sits on the bookshelf in the study has the root word, ‘atone’ defined as ‘to make amends’, and in parentheses to the side, we find: (for wrongdoing).
‘Atonement’ is defined as ‘amends; expiation.’ Then it gets into a little more detail- there is even an additional qualified definition in reference to the term used in theology: ‘the redeeming of mankind through Jesus’ death.’
There it is. A non-biblical reference putting in 7 words the same detail of the Gospel that Paul is spelling out here in these verses. That is what it boils down to. God redeemed the world to God’s self through the death of Jesus. Unfortunately, that is ALL it says. We cannot, as an Easter people, speak of one – the death of Jesus – without speaking of the other – the resurrection of Jesus. If we were to mark the Christian Calendar and follow it more closely, I would hesitate to speak of the resurrection at any great length before Lent and before Easter, but it is kind of hard to get away from … in fact, I don’t know that I really want to get too far away from Easter when speaking about sin and death.
Let’s get back to atonement for a moment. We are, in fact, approaching that season of the Christian calendar during which we are called on to reflect on that very thing. Our sinfulness, our utter lack of recourse in resolving our sinfulness were it not for the expiatory, atoning, amending work of God in Christ. That is what atonement is about. That is the good part of the good news. That is the Gospel. That is the message. Verse 29 concludes the thought: (READ FROM THE BIBLE)
29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.
We are presented with the simplicity of the Gospel, being spelled out based on the faith of the man whom God first approached. Abraham. It was based on his faith that he was reconciled with God, not on his being able to keep the law. Paul’s argument is that his relationship with God – God’s relationship with him PRECEEDED the law, based not on that law, but on love.
And that is where we meet the story. That is where Jerusalem joins the conversation and begins to add to the story. Relationships based on love and nothing else. Love between the members of this congregation, love between this congregation as a corporate entity and God, and love between each of us as individuals and God.
It is this that makes the story come alive. That we can read words penned centuries ago, thousands of miles away, and through the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, that life becomes in us the life of Christ, the body of Christ. We are a “local body of believers” – there is a reason we are called a ‘body’ – it is because we are in a very real and palpable sense the body, the voice, the eyes of Christ to the world.
The challenge for us is, will the world recognize Christ in us?
Let’s pray.
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