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Romans 3:24-26, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Last week we saw that God justifies sinners by faith alone, apart from any works of our own. No one will ever come to God based on what he does or who he is. The glory of the gospel is that God provides sinners with His own righteousness, and that it is available through faith alone in Christ alone. The very moment you place your trust in Christ, God declares you perfectly righteous. He does it for absolutely no reason in us, but rather purely out of His grace. This truth of justification by faith alone has been called the chief article (Luther), the main hinge (Calvin), and the hinge and pillar of our faith (Thomas Watson).
But the question remains, how can a perfectly just God declare sinners righteous? Creating a universe ex nihilo and everything in it in six literal days, unleashing a global flood that destroyed everyone but those eight people in Noah’s ark, or gathering billions of decomposed bodies in the resurrection is no big deal to the omnipotent God. But how can a righteous God bring guilty sinners to Himself and still be perfectly righteous? That is the greatest of all questions.
This brings us to the very heart of God’s redeeming plan. It brings us to one place at one time in human history, to an event planned in eternity past and praised for all eternity future, to a specific day when humanity murdered the Prince of Peace on a Roman cross, a most despicable death to Romans and a curse to Jews. We’re going to look closely at that spectacle this morning. Paul in Galatians 6:14 insisted, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Jesus Christ, my Lord.” Friends, that cross of Jesus Christ must be central in your thoughts. Tether your heart to the cross.
In his little book, All of Grace, Spurgeon wrote: Behold the wonder! There He hangs upon the cross! This is the greatest sight you will ever see. Son of God and Son of Man, there He hangs, bearing pains unutterable, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. Oh, the glory of that sight! The innocent punished! The Holy One condemned! The Ever-blessed made a curse! The infinitely glorious put to a shameful death!
Isaac Watts put it perfectly in one of the greatest hymns of all time, “When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of Glory died!” What do you see when you survey the wondrous cross? This morning let’s look more closely and see four great and mighty truths out there on Skull Hill (Calvary is the Greek word for skull – kranion) where our Savior was crucified.
YOU SEE GOD IN ACTION IN A WAY YOU’LL NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN.
God in all His attributes is seen no better than at the cross. God sovereignly planned it and His wisdom designed it. It is at the cross you see God’s love poured out for sinners. “See from His head, His hands, His feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down.” God’s holiness and justice perfectly dealt with our sins there, God graciously and mercifully in all His goodness provided us forgiveness there, and God brings all who trust in His Son into His eternal life to live forever with Him. And you see God’s immutability as He didn’t spare His own Son; He didn’t hold back one iota of wrath to satisfy His justice.
The cross was not just a chance occurrence in ancient Roman history. Christ didn’t go to the cross to persuade God to have mercy on us. The cross was God’s idea. When you survey the cross, you are watching God at work. “Whom God displayed publicly.” God planned it. God moved nations and people to bring His Son to the cross.
Acts 2:23 this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.
Acts 4:27-28 For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.
Romans 3:25 speaks of the “forbearance” of God in passing over sins previously committed. What does this mean? From Adam through Abraham and David and all the way to the first century many Israelites believed in the coming Messiah, but Christ had not yet made the final payment for their sins. But God held back His judgment, or was “forbearing” of their sins, all those centuries long in view of His predestined plan that Christ would come in the fullness of time and pay for their sins. So, when Christ died for sinners, all the sins of all the sinners God would ever save were heaped on Him and His righteousness was provided for all of them, including those of us who believe in Christ today as well!
YOU SEE A UNIQUE MAN HANGING THERE.
Who is He? Who is that one hanging between two criminals? Everything depends on who this is. What did He do to deserve this? What was His crime? Do you remember how He lived? He fed and healed thousands, raised people from the dead, cast out demons, taught people to love God and their neighbor. Peter called Him the Prince of life, the Holy and Righteous One. Who is He? He is none less than infinite and eternal God Almighty in human form. He is the God-man hanging there before the entire world in open, public shame with Roman spikes piercing His hands, blood streaking down his face, his beard ripped out, his back beat to a pulp by the Roman whips. This is what the depraved and rebellious world thinks of the true God. They watch with cold hearts as He hangs there for three hours in agony and pain, writhing in the darkness, enduring indescribable agony of soul, “bearing shame and scoffing rude.” He cries out with a loud voice that must have echoed through the heavens, “Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabacthani?” translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” and then “tetelestai!” It is finished.
Why is He there? You are looking at God’s amazing wise solution for justifying sinners being worked out right there on that cross! Jesus isn’t there as an example of love, or showing us what sin costs, or as a martyr for God’s cause. He’s not there teaching us moral lessons. He is certainly not there for us to pity. There is nothing sentimental about the cross. He rebuked the weeping women, “Don’t weep for me, but for yourselves.” No, this death is something infinitely and eternally greater than any other death. “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us,” (2 Corinthians 5:21). That’s why He’s there!
YOU SEE GOD PUBLICLY DISPLAYING HIS SON THERE ON SKULL HILL (CALVARY) AS OUR REDEEMER AND PROPITIATION.
Last week we looked at Christ’s redeeming work. He paid the price to release us from the slave market of sin. We were in bondage and unable to redeem ourselves. Only a qualified person could redeem us: someone like us, but without sin. He needed to have the required price to purchase us – His own blood. Ephesians 1:7, “In whom we have redemption through His blood.” He willingly came and paid that price by laying down His life and shedding His blood on behalf of His people. And now His redeemed people are under new ownership. First Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “You’re not your own, you’ve been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.”
The reason He could redeem us, and the heart of the cross, is in verse 25, “Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.” Remember, God’s wrath is on all sin and sinners. God’s wrath is on you in your sin apart from Christ. If God does not justly punish sin, He would destroy Himself by contradicting His own character as righteous lawgiver and judge. But here is the incredible wisdom of God. When Christ hung there for those three hours, it was as a substitutionary sacrifice for you. He was taking your place, He was taking on your sin, He was being cursed for you. He was suffering the agonies of God’s wrath and judgment that your sin deserves, and the sin of all those He came to save.
Propitiation means to appease wrath, and the value of Christ’s death for us is that it appeased God’s wrath. Isaiah 53:6, “The Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” It wasn’t just a physical death that satisfied God’s holy demands against sin. It was a spiritual death. Somehow in those hours on the cross, Jesus Christ endured the eternities of punishment that all those who would come to Him should have endured. We sinned against an infinitely holy God, and the penalty for infinite sin is infinite punishment. Christ suffered an infinite punishment. Herman Witsius put it like this, “The sufferings of Christ, though of short duration, were equivalent to the eternal sufferings of the damned.”
The Greek word for propitiation is hilasterion, the word for “mercy seat” in the Old Testament. In Hebrews 9:5 the same word is used for “mercy seat.” The Old Testament tells us that the mercy seat was part of Israel’s ark of the covenant. The ark of the covenant, a gold-plated chest, sat in Israel’s tabernacle behind a heavy veil in the Holy of Holies, an area where only the high priest could enter. The mercy seat was a slab of gold slightly bigger than two by three feet which rested as a lid on the ark of the covenant. On the annual Day of Atonement, the high priest took the blood of a goat into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled that blood on the mercy seat, the hilasterion.
Leviticus 16:12-13, “He shall take a firepan full of coals of fire from upon the altar before the LORD and two handfuls of finely ground sweet incense and bring it inside the veil. 13 “He shall put the incense on the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the ark of the testimony, otherwise he will die.
Leviticus 16:15-16, “Then he shall slaughter the goat of the sin offering which is for the people, and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. 16 “He shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the impurities of the sons of Israel and because of their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and thus he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides with them in the midst of their impurities.
God’s instructions to the high priest symbolized propitiation. Don’t miss this. The high priest’s rituals were all behind the veil in the tabernacle and even Aaron was not to look on the mercy seat. But now God publicly displayed His Son on the cross outside Jerusalem. Christ was made sin on our behalf. And God was satisfied. Christ’s cry “It is finished!” meant God’s wrath was completely exhausted. There is no more wrath left against those He saved. The price of sin was paid in full. As believers we no longer face His wrath. With His justice satisfied, all God has left for His redeemed children is love–infinite, eternal, unchanging love!
YOU SEE GOD VINDICATING HIS JUSTICE TO DECLARE SINNERS RIGHTEOUS.
Notice carefully verse 26, “so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who believes in Christ.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones describes verse 26 as “the most important verse in the Scriptures.” Remember the big question of how God can save guilty sinners without compromising His perfect righteousness, His holy character. Someone might say, “Why doesn’t God just forgive us without all this blood and dying. He’s God, isn’t He?” God in His justice and holiness must judge every single piece of sin and evil that was ever committed. This demand for total judgment shows us how holy God is. He is infinitely holy, perfectly holy. His holiness does not tolerate the tiniest trace of evil.
And God is immutable. God never bends the rules or overlooks sin. Have you ever been pulled over by a policeman? Go ahead, admit it. You were guilty, right? I was. I am so humble and polite when the officer comes up to the window. “May I see your license and registration?” “Yes sir.” He takes it back to his car and you sit there squirming, wondering how much the ticket will be. Finally, he comes back to the window. “Mr. Godshall, you need to slow down. It’s 30 MPH through here, and I clocked you at 48. I’m giving you are warning this time.” “Thank you; yes sir!” You drive away so relieved the policeman bent the rules. But you really were guilty. You deserved to pay.
God never bends the rules when it comes to payment for your sin. He cannot. You and I have all sinned and come short of God’s glory and someone must pay. God’s holiness demands it. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:32). And here is the beauty of the gospel: Christ paid for us in full. God is perfectly just and the cross of Jesus Christ vindicates His justice. He must judge every sin completely and eternally, without the slightest compromise of His righteous character. Do you see? This is why the cross is our only hope. This is why Paul gloried in the cross. This is the gospel. God’s justice is perfectly vindicated, and He is the justifier of sinners who believe in Jesus.
SO WHAT?
The cross displays the infinite wisdom of God. The cross is why God was able to save people in the Old Testament times. Every sacrifice made looked forward to the coming work of Christ. And we believers today look back to the past work of Christ. The cross is how God can justify sinners without bending His standard the slightest! It all centers on Jesus Christ and what He accomplished there. God’s justice was satisfied, and His love can pour forth on His people. The Psalmist seems to be describing what happened at the cross.
Psalms 85:10, Lovingkindness and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Is Christ the only way to God? Absolutely. God couldn’t possibly save anyone apart from Christ!
The cross is at the heart and center of your relationship to God. Everything flows from this. We must continually think of Christ and His redeeming us at the cross as the starting point, the foundation, the atmosphere of all we are and do as Christians. I love my wife because of Christ. I instruct and guide my children because of Christ. I guard my tongue, forgive those who offend me, control my desires, find contentment, rejoice in trials, give my offerings, fellowship with others, stay accountable, all because of Christ and His redeeming us for Himself through the cross.
Or perhaps you wonder if God is still angry with you and will not receive you. If so, read these words over and over, believe them as truth, and thank God for them.
“Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth as a propitiation by faith in His blood, to demonstrate His righteousness…that He might be just, and the justifier of the one (put your name there) who has faith in Jesus.”
So, as you survey the wondrous cross, what do you see there? Do you see the Prince of Glory dying there? Dying for you? Can you say, “My richest gain I count but lost and pour contempt on all my pride.” Do you agree, “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul my life, my all.”