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“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 fall 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, ESV)

Pastor Abel preached a sermon on this passage titled “Standing in Righteousness”.

Have you ever wondered why Jesus had to die to save us from sin? God, in his infinite power, created the universe. He speaks and it is so. So, when Adam and Even ate the fruit in the Garden of Eden, why couldn’t God reset the universe the way I reset my computer when it crashes? Or why couldn’t he say, “Well you sinned, but I’ll forgive you this one time. You get a do over.” Why wait thousands of years for Jesus to be born to the virgin Mary, in the Messianic line of David, fulfilling all kinds of prophecy and promises?

Watch this short video clip where John MacArthur answers this question:

Our sin, and Adam and Eve’s sin, and all the sin ever committed, cannot simply be swept under the rug of heaven. God must deal with it. Notice the word propitiation in the above passage. This word has a rich depth of meaning, but put simply, it means the removal of wrath. In this passage, Paul is directly stating that Jesus, in his death, took the wrath that God would have poured out on us because of sin, and bore in on his own back.

As the prophet Isaiah says of the Messiah, “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5, ESV)

 

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