All God

DEVOTION

ROMANS

ALL GOD

Rom 3:5-31

5 But if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) 6 Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? 7 Someone might argue, "If my falsehood enhances God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?" 8 Why not say — as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say — "Let us do evil that good may result"? Their condemnation is deserved. 9 What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. 10 As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one;   11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."   13 "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips."   14 "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness."   15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery mark their ways, 17 and the way of peace they do not know."   18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes."   19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. 21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. 27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. 29 Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

NIV

There is not any way that we can break this up as we have to take the whole of the rest of this discussion to come to somewhat of a conclusion. Although the next words we will come to are, what then shall we say, so the letter does not conclude, but we have to take something from this portion which we need to see. The whole idea is boiled down to the fact all of us, no matter how religious we appear are but sinners saved by grace. This grace is not a onetime offer that we can accept then if we sin after accepting the grace, well than too bad for us, we are condemned. Not at all, God’s grace is a continuous act which frees us from the penalty of sin. Now of course we should not go on actively sinning so his grace can increase. But we cannot be made righteous any other way then through our faith in Jesus Christ. We should try to live a life pleasing to God and make every effect to keep ourselves from sinning, but the fact is we are going to sin. The law was not put in place so the Israelites could keep it, no it was to show them they needed the Messiah, the Christ. This is the whole of the presentation Paul is laying out for us. We need Jesus. Without Jesus we do not have a chance. But we cannot just say we have Jesus and then go about living like the heathen do. But our good deeds or right behavior is not going to get us to heaven. We cannot be justified by any good deeds or any good behavior. It does not matter how religious or holy we appear to live, it brings nothing to the table of justification. We are justified by faith, and that is all. It is not about our outward appearance, but about our heart. We cannot even boast that our heart is right before God. We have done nothing, God has done it all. We cannot even circumcise our heart. The Spirit is the one who does that. So then what do we say? We say thank you Jesus. How wretched are we? All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But thank you Jesus. Our faith has made us whole. But then it is not even really our faith, then we could boast about our faith, how much faith we have. Then it could become a contest to see who has the most faith. We will see much later in this letter that it is God who gives us a measure of faith. How much a measure is we do not know, yet the point is even through we are saved by faith, it is the faith which God gives us by which we are saved. It is all God, nothing from us. The sooner we get that the better off we will be.