God's Righteousness Explained — Romans 3 Verse by Verse

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, and let's get right back into where we left off in the book of Romans, and I'm not even going to take time in this half hour for any announcements whatsoever, because time is of the essence and we want to get as much covered as we can. I'm going to start in Romans chapter 3 in this half hour. Romans chapter 3, and we're still dealing with the word salvation coming out of Romans 1 .16. So, when we're through with the word salvation, we're going to go back and pick up in Romans 1.18. I don't know when that'll be, but I've put a few of the meanings of salvation on the board. I've put four, and I think I've probably got 11 or 12 or 13 on my mind that I want to bring out, if not in this program, in succeeding ones. But the imputed righteousness of God is involved in the plan of salvation. In other words, the moment we believe God, by an act of imputation, covered us or gave to our account His righteousness. None of ours, it's all of His. And we pick this up in Romans chapter 3. And let's start at verse 19. Romans 3, starting at verse 19. And he says, Now we know that what thingsoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law. Now, who was under the law? The Jew, Israel, Judaism, temple worship. To those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty. Now, how far does the law reach out to? Everybody, everybody. It was given to the Jew under it. He practiced it. It was his religion. It was his approach to God. But the law, as we understand the law, primarily the moral law, the Ten Commandments, didn't stop with the Jew. It reached out to every last human being, not to save, because it couldn't save a Jew either, but to condemn. See, and this is where people have totally misconstrued the role of the law. It was never intended to save a Jew. All it was intended to do was show him his guilt. See, that's all the law could do. My, I've just almost screamed at my class people. The law was on cold tables of stone. Wasn't even anything you'd like to embrace and hold to your breast. And it just sat there in stark tables of stone. It could do nothing to help that person keep it. It could do nothing to keep somebody from stealing or committing adultery or anything else that it names. All it can do is condemn. Guilty, guilty, guilty. But it didn't stop with just the Jew. It convicts the Gentile just as thoroughly as it does the Jew. All right, read on. Therefore, verse 20, by the deeds of the law. In other words, by doing what the law commanded. By doing good. By refraining from breaking the law. By doing what the law commanded. That's the deeds of the law. And there should no flesh be justified in his sight. That's legalism, see. The law can't do anything to justify a person. For by the law is the knowledge not of salvation, not of a way to heaven. It's what? The knowledge of sin. All it can do is condemn. You're guilty. And then Jesus took the law even further. He took it to the place where nobody can wiggle out from under it. And He said, even if you think it, you've broken it. All right, read on, verse 21. But now, you know I'm always stressing that three-letter word, but, it's the flip side. Oh, under the law, all it could do was condemn. There wasn't anything man could do to keep the law, except by virtue of the ritual and the sacrifices, get back in a good relationship with God. But the law itself couldn't do it. All it could do was condemn Him. But now, see, we're under a whole different set of circumstances. Christ has died. He's paid the sin debt. He's been buried. He's been raised from the dead. He's ascended to the Father's right hand, interceding for us. But now, the righteousness of God. See, not of the human individual, but the righteousness of God without the law. See that? That just puts legalism out in the cold. But righteousness without the law is manifested. You know I'm always defining that word. That's put in the spotlight. Being witnessed by the law and the prophets. That's what? The Old Testament. I remember years ago, a group of men approached me, and they wanted me to help them start a work up here in northeastern Oklahoma. And the first thing they told me as we began visiting about some of the things, they didn't want any Old Testament taught. I just closed up whatever I had, and I said, then I'm going home. Because I've got nothing to teach if I can't use the Old Testament. You've got to use the whole. You use all the Scriptures. Old Testament and New, because they all dovetail together. But, he says it so plainly here, that even though the law has nothing to do now with our salvation, with the imputing of righteousness from God to us, yet everything that you and I enjoy in this age of grace rests on what took place back there in the Old Testament. Just like I said in the last program, you can't go into higher mathematics until you've learned the simple part. Then verse 22, "...even the righteousness of God, which is, or through the faith of Jesus Christ, unto all, and upon all, that..." What again? See that? Oh, people don't like that. They want to add something in there. They want to say, but we've got to do this, we've got to do that. We've got to do something. No you don't. You believe. Now when I talk about believing, I'm talking about really believing. I'm not talking about a head knowledge. I'm not talking about, well yeah, I guess it all happened. No, I'm talking about when you get to the place that you can rest on these things, and you can say, I believe it with all my heart. I have no doubt. I may not understand it, but I believe it. And that's the only way God can look at it. Alright, come back to the text. "...this righteousness then, that comes by the faith, or through the faith of Jesus Christ, unto all..." We're not going to segment these people, and put some in a higher category than others. "...unto all, and upon all them that believe. For there is no difference..." And again, when Paul says no difference, what is he referring to? Jew and Gentile. The Jew, with all his legalism, with all his background, he's on the same set of circumstances that we Gentiles are. Alright, what does it mean to have imputed righteousness? Let's go all the way back to the first man that experienced it. Genesis chapter 3. "...the man who plunged the whole human race under the curse, made every one of us a sinner by birth, was also the first one to experience the imputed righteousness that God alone could impute." Now, remember that word imputed was a bookkeeping term in Paul's day, and it was like putting it to the account. That's what the word means. When something is imputed, it was put to the account. Genesis chapter 3, verse 21. Genesis chapter 3, verse 21. "...unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins." Now, of course, that implies the sacrificial animal. He had to kill an animal to get their skins. And that, of course, satisfied the requirement of a blood sacrifice, which we know that He's demanded, as we'll see later in chapter 4 with Abel. Alright, so He kills the sacrificial animals, uses their skins to provide their clothing, to take place of those fig leaves that were nothing. That wasn't God's idea at all. That was a human endeavor. But He kills the animals, skins them evidently, and puts the clothing upon Adam and Eve, and then clothed them. Now too many people just read that and they think it was the physical clothing of those skins that is implied. No, it isn't. We're dealing with a spiritual phenomenon here, and it is a restoration now of Adam and Eve back into a relationship with their Creator. And it had to be the blood bought way, and so that's why He had to kill the animals. That's the only way God can receive lost persons, is by the shedding of blood. And that's another one of the absolutes. Hebrews chapter 8. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. Never has been, and never will be. You don't hear it much anymore, but that doesn't take it away. So here, Adam and Eve now have an imputed righteousness that clothed them. Now you say, how do you get that? Well, we'll stay in the Old Testament and come on up to Isaiah. Isaiah 61, and it explains it so beautifully, that this is exactly what Adam and Eve experienced, even as Isaiah did. An imputed, covering clothing of God's righteousness. Isaiah 61. Drop down to verse 10. Isaiah 61, verse 10. Oh, this is beautiful. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for He, God, hath clothed me with the garments of what? Salvation. This same word. Salvation has always meant the same thing. Even in our secular world, we'll still use the word salvation. I have someone, as I've used the illustration over and over, someone who is about to go bankrupt. Boy, they just can't dig themselves out of the hole. No way. But a rich uncle dies, and leaves him a whole stash of money. What's the death of that uncle? Hey, it's the salvation of this old boy that's about to go broke. All of a sudden, he's made well. That's what salvation has always meant. Bringing somebody out of a destitute place. All right, Isaiah uses the same word. The garments of salvation. He hath... What's the next word? Covered me. See? What did Romans say? He has... Got to go back and look at it. He has placed the righteousness of Christ unto all and upon all. See? Covers us. All right, back to Isaiah. For He hath covered me with the robe of what? Righteousness. His righteousness, not ours. You and I can't look at each other and see our own righteousness. It's impossible. But when God looks at us, He doesn't see my righteousness. He doesn't see yours. Whose righteousness does He see? His own. The imputed righteousness that He has provided. You see how that just leaves us out of the picture altogether? I mean, there's nothing we can do for our salvation but believe it. We just have to keep our hands off. All right? So He has covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. You know, even the plainest of girls, she's always beautiful. When? At her bride... At her wedding. We've been to a lot of weddings, and I've never yet seen a bride that wasn't beautiful. And I think that's why the Scripture uses that analogy. When God looks at us, He sees something beautiful. And in ourselves, we're anything but. But He doesn't see us. He sees Himself. All right, so now then, back to Romans chapter 3. Look at it again. The same thing happened to Adam that happened to Isaiah. It has happened to us, if we've believed. And that is that He has covered us with an imputed righteousness. His righteousness and none of our own. The Scripture says our righteousness are what? Filthy rags. And you and I don't even want to think what a filthy rag was in the scriptural account. But whatever. That isn't what God sees. He sees His own righteousness. And upon all them that, and again we enter into that by faith, by believing. Now, we'll come to the second one I've got up here. After we've got imputed righteousness as part of our salvation, we are justified. Justified, and that's in verse 24. Being justified freely, without a cause, without a cost, without a penny involved. Justified freely by His what? Grace. Now, most of you have already got my definition of justification in the fly leaf of your Bible or someplace. But see, justification was a judicial act of God. As the judge, sitting on the bench, and that judicial act of God looked down upon you and I, the believing sinner, now entering into this great plan of salvation. He looked down upon us from His position on the bench. And after all, that's what Romans is really a picture of. It's a courtroom scene. It's God building His case against humanity. We'll come to that later. But from that position on the bench He looks down at helpless me and helpless you and He says, Because you believe the gospel, I now declare you just as if you have never sinned. That's justification. A judicial act of God whereby He declares the sinner who is guilty, guilty, guilty. And God says, You're just as if you've never sinned. Oh, that's hard for people to swallow. We'll come to one of the others a little later, down to number four, forgiven. Why can God justify us? Because we're forgiven. How can He forgive us? Because we're justified. And this all rolls together, see. And it's all involved in that one word, salvation, which is prompted by the power of God. Nothing that man can do. All right, let's read on. Being justified freely, without a cause, by His grace. Oh, but here comes the next great terminology of the word salvation. What? Redemption. We've been redeemed. And what does it mean to be redeemed? We're bought. We've been bought with a price that's been paid by someone. Redemption still holds the same definition, even today. If you have hawked something and it's in the hawk shop and all of a sudden you come along with enough bucks to go back and get it, what do you have to do? You have to redeem it. You have to buy it back. See, and that's the picture of the human race all through Scripture. Adam fell. God lost the human race. So what do you have to do? You have to redeem it. And the only way He could redeem it was to pay the price. And Peter, we won't take time to look at it, but Peter in his little epistle says, you haven't been redeemed with silver and gold, but with what? The precious blood of Christ. That's the price of redemption. You can't go by without it. If you don't like the blood, well, then don't expect to be redeemed, because that's the way God has put it. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. Without recognizing the shed blood of Christ, there's no redemption. And we have to believe it. And listen, God isn't some Santa Claus up there that we can manipulate. A lot of people think He is. But no, He isn't. He's absolute. He's sovereign. He's holy. He's just. And it's going to be done His way or no way at all. And we can't manipulate Him. And so He's laid down some of these basic truths, and I don't care if the liberals do throw it out. Let them. They're the ones that are going to suffer the loss. But we better hang on to the fundamentals. I have to remember, a gentleman was going to use our tapes in his local church, in another area of the country. So he showed it to his pastor. And all the pastors said, Well, he's sort of a fundamentalist. But he said, I guess that's all right. And go ahead and use them. Well, you bet you better be fundamental. Because there are some things that have to be fundamental. You go into any profession, and we've got professional people here. If they digress away from the fundamentals of their profession, I don't care what it is. Where are they going to end up? They're going to end up in court with a liability clause. It's just that simple. You have to stay with the fundamentals in whatever you're doing, or you're in trouble. Same way with this book. We have to rest on these basic fundamentals. And one of them is, without faith you can't please God. The second one is, without the shedding of blood there is no remission. Those are fundamentals. And so now, we are redeemed. We're brought back with the precious blood of Christ. Well, let's look at a couple other verses, so we don't just depend on one. Go back with me to Colossians. I think there's also one in Ephesians. I've probably got it on the board. Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. That's what the book says. This isn't something I've dreamed up, or some other theologian, or something like that. The book says it. Ephesians chapter 1. Oh, I always have to wonder where to best jump in. Oh, I don't like to jump in on one verse. I like to get as many as I can, but I guess here we better. Because the period is at the end of verse 6. Now you come into verse 7. In whom, speaking of Christ. And remember, in this little book of Ephesians, I think it's 90-some times that the prepositional phrase, in whom, or in Him, is used over and over. And so now it's in whom, in Christ. We have redemption. How? Through His blood. There is no other way. Through His blood. The forgiveness of sins. See, I tied it in with justification a moment ago, but it's also tied in with redemption. They all fit together. When we have the imputed righteousness, we're going to be justified, we're going to be justified, we're going to be redeemed, and if we're redeemed, we're forgiven. And that's only just the third of the list. I think I've got 12 or 13 of them. And they all fit together to fulfill that word, salvation. Now I'm going to emphasize it again when we get to the end of it, but I might as well put it in here. Even of these four things I have on the board, can you take them and handle them? Can you lay it out on a table? Can you put it under a microscope? Can you analyze any of these things? No. Not a one of them. They are all intangible. They are all invisible. So how do we know they happened? By faith. See? By faith we know that this has happened. That's the only way I know I'm forgiven. I haven't any great plaque on my wall at home from God or anybody else that says I'm forgiven. I don't have any decree from someone that says, hey, Les, you're justified, you're redeemed. No, I don't have any of that. Neither do you. What do we have? The promises of this book. It says it. And because the book says it, I know it has happened. I'll never forget years ago, a lady to the Lord, and oh, she was so beside herself. She said, I've never seen these things before. But anyway, as we left dealing with her and her daughter, I told her, now, tomorrow you'll probably have doubts. You'll probably think that this was all just an emotional thing, and after all the mountain, and that's what you have to do. You come right back, and you look at some of these verses I've shown you tonight, and you just claim them. You just simply say out loud, now, God, this is what You said, this is what You've told me, this is what You've promised, and I believe it. And then miracle of miracles. You see, God increases that faith, and the more faith we have, the more we can believe it, and that's how we grow in grace and knowledge. All right, another one. Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1. Colossians 1, verse 14. I was going to start at verse 12, but I got that for another event later on. We're translated along with everything else. But Colossians 1, verse 14. Still dealing with the aspect of redemption. In whom we have, past tense, it's an absolute, it's no ifs, ands, buts here, is there? This is it. In whom we have redemption. We've been bought back. How? Through His blood. Even, what? The forgiveness of sin. Do you see that? It's all tied together. And so we're a forgiven people. You know, I'm always warning folks, when we talk about believers coming before the judgment seat of Christ, I imagine a lot of believers still think that somehow they're going to have to be dealt with sin at the judgment seat of Christ. No, you won't. You'll never face your sin when you come up into glory. Because your sin has been judged already. It was judged there at the cross. It's under the blood. And we're going to come up only to see what we get for reward for how we've behaved as a believer. The judgment seat of Christ is never intended to determine your eternal destiny. Why? If you haven't got it by that time, you never will have, and you won't be there in the first place. But the judgment seat of Christ is only for the believer to determine His reward. Now the great white throne judgment, yeah, that's something else. That's going to be for the lost of the ages, Cain and everybody else on up that has been rebellious and of no faith. Yeah, they're going to be at the great white throne judgment, but no believer will be there, and no lost person will be at the judgment seat of Christ. That's going to be for the believers. And we're going to be there because we have been redeemed, and we have been bought with a price. Well, let's see, our next one, we've already touched on it somewhat. Maybe that's enough. We can just cover the fourth one right here. Forgiven. What does it mean to be forgiven? Well, it means that God has wiped the slate clean. He no longer has a controversy with you and I as a sin problem between us and Him. It's done. Now granted, in our Christian walk, we're going to fail. We're going to sin. We're going to fall. But that isn't what God is dealing with in salvation. That's something else. After we're a child of God, He's going to deal with our daily sins and our failures by the matter of confession. And He's going to recognize, yes, you are forgiven. All sin. And a lot of people can't swallow that. You mean what I commit tomorrow is already forgiven? That's what the Scripture says. Does that give me license? Absolutely not. You know that. I have never advocated. You remember, I think I mentioned in a couple of weeks ago in one of the programs, I just read a book by a great theologian out of London. And he said, if you really teach and preach the gospel of grace, as Paul did, if you really teach it the way the Scripture lays it out, then you're going to be accused from time to time of teaching that people who are saved have license to sin. I mean, that's just part and parcel. Paul said the same thing. I've been slanderously reported. But see, that's not what we have to understand. We have to understand that God's grace was so great that He forgave past, present, and future based on His grace. But that's not license. We still have to walk and work and live pleasing in His sight. Don't tell me you can go out and commit gross sin and still be pleasing in His sight. That's not scriptural. And so that's why I'm always qualifying. Yes, all these things have happened. God has done all this on my behalf. But that's not license. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick. A weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported and your gift is appreciated. Thank you and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.