The Righteousness of God
Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
In addition to being
the day in which six of our parish confirmands publicly confess the faith and the
other spiritual gifts that were given them in Baptism, today commemorates Martin
Luther’s initiation of the Reformation on October 31, 1517. What began as an invitation
for academic debate over the abusive doctrine of indulgences, soon became a call
for the return to God’s Word as the sole authority for the Church’s doctrine
and life. Scriptures clearly teaches that a sinner’s only hope in life or death
is that Jesus’ perfect life, death, and resurrection are enough to save them. Solely
by virtue of Christ’s substitutionary life and death, are sinners declared righteous
before their holy God. Luther and the other reformers had to fight, some to the
death, to preach this Gospel to Christ’s Church.
Today our confirmands
will make a vow to do similarly if necessary. They will be asked: “Do you
intend to continue steadfast in this confession and Church and to suffer all,
even death, rather than fall away from it?” To which they will each
individually reply: “I do, by the grace of God.”
“Even death rather than
fall away from it.” That’s a serious commitment, whether we’re talking about Martin
Luther and the other Reformers or these six young adults. I pray that none of
you need experience such a dilemma, but if you should be called upon to face martyrdom,
that God would give you the grace and strength to remain faithful unto dead.
What could lead someone
to make such a confession, to stake eternity on this Christian faith? In his
later years, Luther often remarked that the turning point for him came when he
understood the force of the phrase “the righteousness of God.” He writes:
First I saw this well, namely, that the free gift is
absolutely necessary for obtaining the light and the heavenly life, and I
worked anxiously and diligently to understand the well-known statement in Rom.
1:17: ‘The righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel.’ Then I sought and
knocked for a long time (cf. Matt. 7:7), for that expression ‘the righteousness
of God’ stood in the way. It was commonly explained by saying that the
righteousness of God is the power of God by which God Himself is formally
righteous and condemns sinners. This is the way all teachers except Augustine
had interpreted this passage: the righteousness of God, that is, the wrath of
God. But every time I read this passage, I always wished that God had never
revealed the Gospel—for who could love a God who is angry, judges, and
condemns?—until finally, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, I weighed more
carefully the passage in Habakkuk (2:4), where I read: “The righteous shall
live by his faith.” From this I concluded that life must come from faith. In
this way… all Holy Scripture and heaven itself were opened to me.[i]
Luther’s road to the Reformation—a
monk in despair for his eternal salvation who found a gracious Savior on the
pages of the Scriptures—is a story many of us have heard repeatedly. However,
the Reformation did not take place because of one mulish monk with a troubled conscience.
Luther preached Christ to an entire era burdened by the guilt of their sin and
the fear of God’s judgment. It was a world of sinners that longed for the
comfort and certainty found only in the preaching of Christ crucified.
But what about today?
Do our sins bother us to the point that we worry about God’s righteous wrath?[ii]
Do we ever consider the righteousness of God and what it means for our standing
before the Lord?
There is no better place
to look for an answer to these questions than in our text from Romans 3. If you
look closely, you’ll see four times within six verses of our text that St. Paul
refers to “the righteousness of God.”
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart
from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the
righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For
there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be
received by faith. 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 (Romans 3:21-26).
The apostle had just spent
two and a half chapters of his epistle laying out the real problem we have with
God: Namely, our sin and His law. Paul strings together a list of Old Testament
citations that should make anyone cringe:
“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one
seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no
one does good, not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to
deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are
ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:10–18).
After Paul finishes here,
no one escapes. Jews and Gentiles—all are exposed as sinners who can do nothing
to earn a righteous standing before God. And that’s the point of the law: “For
by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since
through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20).
God is the Judge and
before His righteous law we have no hope. The law God gives is not a plan we
can follow to placate His wrath. The law does the opposite to us. It condemns
us. It reveals our sins. Under the law, our fears of wrath are justified. Under
the law, the righteousness of God is a fearful thing.
At the time of the
Reformation, there were two major controversies related to people’s lack of
righteousness. Some, such as Desiderius Erasmus in his Freedom of the Will,
wrongly thought their fallen will still allowed them freely to choose to believe.
Luther was quick to point out in his Bondage of the Will that mankind lost
free will in regard to spiritual things and we are, in fact, born slaves of
sin. Others, such as preacher of indulgences, John Tetzel, wrongly thought they
could do something to earn righteousness. But Paul leaves no room for fallen
man’s participation in our salvation. “We hold that one is justified by faith,
apart from works of the law” (Romans 3:28).
Many today do not realize
their own sinfulness or that they cannot be righteous on their own. Some people
wrongly think they are not sinful, or at least not that sinful! There is
a widespread idea that “good people” go to heaven. “Sure, I may have made some
mistakes, but overall, I’m a good person, at least better than a lot of others.”
But God doesn’t grade on a curve. He requires perfect righteousness.
Other people wrongly
think they are free to choose to believe, to make a decision for Christ. They,
in effect, turn faith into a human work. However, faith is only a work of the
Holy Spirit. As we confess and the confirmands have memorized: I believe that I
cannot by my own reason and strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to
Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His
gifts, sanctified, and kept me in the true faith.
Some go to the other
extreme. They believe that God could never love them after what they have done.
They feel helpless and hopeless, lost and irredeemable.
I would argue that in
the modern world, many more are disturbed by the righteousness of God, but
instead of fleeing from His wrath, they have turned the tables and are standing
up to fight with God.
The righteousness of
God still weighs heavy on us. However, we have attempted to switch seats with
God. We believe we are on the judge’s bench now and God needs to justify
Himself to us! No longer are we concerned if we have not done enough to earn a
right standing before God. No, we have eaten the fruit of the tree and bought
the Devil’s lie that we can be gods. As such, we have decided to put God on
trial and judge Him!
Robert Kolb writes, “Luther’s
theology of the cross evolved from a concern that human creatures do not have
(they cannot produce!) what God in His justice demands from them. Modern people
complain because God does not produce what they demand as their rights from
Him!”[iii]
God calls all people to
repent, to acknowledge the sin the law reveals, and to live their whole life
humbly in repentance (the first of Luther’s ninety-five theses, AE 31:25,83-85).
God’s patience in the Old Testament led to the passing over of sins then (v
25). His patience now is for repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
For those who repent,
for those who fear God’s righteous wrath for sin, Jesus comes to remove our fears.
“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law,
although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God
through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (Romans 3:21-22). Our right
standing before God and His righteousness comes in a manner wholly different
from God’s commands, in a way which is not according to law. It comes as a pure
gift to be received by faith, not as a reward to be earned. “For all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a
gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a
propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith” (Romans 3:23-25).
In other words, Christ
has removed God’s wrath by taking it on your behalf. He is your “propitiation.”
He is the one who stands between you and God’s righteous wrath, so you receive none
of it. You are justified because your sins lay on Jesus and God’s wrath is
poured out on Him instead of you and Christ’s righteousness is credited to you
by faith. All of this is given to you as a gift! It is free, by grace alone.
Today we find God’s
gift of righteousness given in Word and Sacrament and received by faith. All
are included under sins so all can be made righteous—justified, forgiven,
redeemed—by faith (Galatians 3:22). In Holy Baptism, the Word with water
forgives you, washes you with Jesus’ blood, and seals you for the day of your complete
redemption. In Absolution, Christ’s words, through the pastor give you mercy
and grace. In Holy Communion, the Word offers the same gracious, life-giving
blood Jesus shed on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins and the
strengthening of your faith.
This is the righteousness
of God: For Jesus’ sake, you are forgiven for all your sins.
In the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture
quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001
by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
[i]
Luther, M. (1999).
Luther’s works,
vol. 5: Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 26-30. (J. J. Pelikan, H.
C. Oswald, & H. T. Lehmann, Eds.) (Vol. 5, p. 158). Saint Louis: Concordia
Publishing House.
[ii]
Epistle: Romans
3:19-28 (Reformation Sunday: Series B ) | 1517,
https://www.1517.org/articles/epistle-romans-319-28-reformation-sunday-series-b.
[iii]
Kolb, Robert, “Luther
on the Theology of the Cross” in The Pastoral Luther: Essays on Martin
Luther’s Practical Theology (Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids, 2009). 35.
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