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The River ChurchSermons

Righteousness

Righteousness Explained

Gary Wright · Sunday, 1 June 2025 · Romans 3:21-31 · 38:47 · 4,671 words

Romans S6 · 3:21-31 Burton

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

The passage from Romans 3:21‑31 explains that all people have sinned and cannot be right with God by their own effort. God offers righteousness as a gift through faith in Jesus Christ, whose blood serves as a propitiation for sin. The speaker shows that this salvation is by grace alone, excluding human boasting, and that true faith involves repenting and trusting in Christ’s death and resurrection. Listeners are invited to place their faith in Jesus and receive the gift of righteousness.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

faith 60 righteous 49 law 37 hopeless 9 blood 14 patient 9 propitiation 9 dawn 5 justify 18 brag 7 foster 4 god 91

Topics

Faith 14 Righteousness 13 Sin 9 Atonement & Sacrifice 8 The Law 7 Justification 6 Salvation 5 The Wrath of God 3 Grace 2 The Gospel 2 Abraham 2

Scripture referenced 23

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 3:21-31 0:05 Job 9 3:25 Romans 3:21-23 4:19 Romans 3:22 7:32 Romans 3:20 8:14 John 5:39 9:24 Hebrews 11 10:28 Psalms 22 10:47 Hebrews 11 11:01 Hebrews 11 11:09 Mark 5:7 12:33 Romans 1 15:15 Romans 1:18 15:15 1 Peter 1:18-19 21:37 Hebrews 9:22 22:49 Hebrews 10:1 23:12 Hebrews 10:4 24:21 Romans 2:4 25:23 2 Peter 3:9 26:30 Romans 2:26 29:16 Romans 5 36:18 Ephesians 2 37:24 Romans 10 37:50

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

off today reading our entire passage in Romans that we're going to be talking about. This is

Romans 3, 21 through 31. And Paul writes this, 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 of 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. Then what becomes of

boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By the law of works? No, by the law of faith. For we

hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God, God of Jews only?

Is he not God of Gentiles also?

Yes, of Gentiles also. Since God is one, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the

uncircumcised through faith? Do we then overthrow the law by faith? By no means. On the contrary,

we uphold the law. That's a lot of words. I know some of this can be hard to understand when we

read it just or hear it.

But I encourage you at home to read these things for yourself. Just don't take my word for it. Study

it on your own. Paul's writings are incredible. The book of Romans is incredible. And this passage

of scripture explains God's righteousness probably better than any place in scripture. So I'm excited

about today. But over the past four weeks, Paul's been building a case against mankind. And it's

It was hard to talk about it week after week. But we really need to understand who we are

before we're going to turn to the gospel. And that's what I think that's why the Holy Spirit

inspired Paul to stretch it out over two chapters. But Paul proved that mankind,

every person is totally hopeless and sinful, totally hopeless and sinful. And that sounds

And in Job, Job says this in Job 9-2. It says, how can a man be right before God when we're so

hopeless on our own? How can a man be right before God? That's the question that we all need to be

asking ourselves. How can I be right before God? Paul goes from speaking in this passage, he goes

from speaking about hopelessness and sinfulness that we all have to the miracle of God's

righteousness. And in Romans, and I'm going to read these verses again. I know we read the whole

thing, but I want to read these verses again and kind of break them down. Romans 3, 21-23,

Paul says this,

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. Things seemed hopeless as we studied over

the past four weeks. They seemed hopeless. And I love how Paul starts this passage off. He

transitions from that hopelessness to hope. And he uses two words. He says, but now. That's his

transition. And I think of this. I think of him saying, but God, right? And years ago, Kim's

grandma had a neighbor that was a foster parent. And she got this little girl. Her name was Dawn.

She was a newborn. Dawn was Down syndrome. And the doctor,

and the doctors told this foster mom that she would not live past the age of two. And if she did,

she would be brain dead. It seemed hopeless. And the foster mom, she decided, you know what?

I don't want to deal with this. I can't deal with this. But Kim's grandma, she loved Dawn.

She met this little baby and she loved her. And she said, that's exactly what I want. That's

exactly what I want. And her and her husband, her and Kim's grandpa became foster parents.

And they had been together for a long time. And they had been together for a long time. And they had

adopted Dawn. And guess what? Dawn didn't die at age two. Matter of fact, she's going to turn 57

this month. Listen, things can seem hopeless, but God, right? And that's what Paul's saying here.

We're hopeless, but God. We're hopeless, but now. He says, now the righteousness has been

manifested. God's righteousness has been made known. That's what the word manifest means. It's

been made known.

And the word righteousness means this, to be made right with God. This is the answer to Job's

question. How can we possibly be right with God? Because God is not done with us yet. He had a

plan, right? And that plan is Jesus Christ. It says, the righteousness of God through faith in

Jesus Christ for all who believe, in verse 22.

The gospel. That is the gospel. That's our hope. That's how we become righteous, through the

gospel. God showed us a way to be made right with him, without the law. We are only made right

through faith in Jesus Christ. God's righteousness is not based on our efforts. It's not based on

our efforts. It does not come from obedience. It does not come from being good. Because God's

righteousness is not based on our efforts. It does not come from being good. Because none of us are.

If you remember last week, the last passage of scripture we read was Romans 3.20. And Paul says

this in that passage, just to refresh your memory. It says, for by works of the law, no human being

will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. Look, the law wasn't

given to save us. And we've talked about this for weeks. We can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't

keep the law. That's God's character. God gave it to us to show us that we're sinners, and we need

a savior. That's the purpose of the law. And righteousness, this righteousness God's talking

about, it's not a new concept. He says, the law and the prophets bear witness to it. What's the

law and the prophets? That's the Old Testament. And the Old Testament bears witness to righteousness.

In righteousness' name.

His name is Jesus. Right? His name is Jesus. Jesus writes this in John 5.39. He says, you search the

scripture because you think that in them you have eternal life. And that you think that in them you

have eternal life. And it is they that bear witness about me. This is Jesus saying, look, the Old

Testament is full of prophecy, and it's all about me. It's not going to be me. It's going to be me.

It's going to save you. The one that it's talking about is the one who's going to set you free from

your sin. We are only right with God, or righteous, through that faith in Jesus Christ and what he did

on the cross. But faith has always been the way to righteousness. If you, we're not going to turn

there, but in Hebrews chapter 11, that chapter is called the Hall of Faith. It's about Old Testament

and they were saved the same way we are, through faith. They didn't know who the Messiah was going

to be. They didn't know that he was going to go to the cross. They should have. By Psalm 22, they

should have known that. But they didn't really understand it. But they had faith that God was

going to have a plan to take care of their problem of sin. And Hebrews chapter 11 talks about lots of

these Old Testament saints and their problems of sin. And Hebrews chapter 11 talks about lots of

their faith. And one of them in particular is Abraham. And it says that Abraham was counted

righteousness because he believed God. And three times in our scripture, in the Bible, it says that

look, he was saved because through his faith, just like we are. He was looking ahead to the cross

and we're looking back at it. But we're all saved by faith. Faith, sometimes we can think faith is

we take it like a fact, or we believe that there's a God. We believe that there's a Christ. But that's

really not faith. Just knowing the fact or having that fact in your mind is not real faith. Faith

requires us to have a change of mind, to realize that Jesus is our only hope and turn to him. That's

in our head. But unless we repent and turn to him, we're never, we don't truly have that faith. Even

demons had the faith. In Mark chapter 5 verse 7, there's a demon talking to the Lord. He's, he's

possessed, there's a group of them actually, but they're possessing a man. And it says, in crying

out in a loud voice, he, the demon, said, what have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?

He believed he had the fact that Jesus was real. He knew who Jesus was, but he didn't have faith.

He says, I injure you by God not to torment me. Look, this is true for everyone. We have to have

faith, no matter who we are, what we've done, if we want to be made righteous before God. We have

to have that faith. No one is good enough to be righteous.

on their own. No one is too bad or too evil that they can't come or be made righteous through faith

in Jesus. We all can be made righteous through faith in Jesus. I've heard people say, if I come

in that building, if I come to church, that thing's going to burn down. You ever heard that? Honestly,

I could have said that in my own life. But thank the Lord, he made me righteous through his son,

the Lord wants us to come to him because he knows that he's our only hope. The building's not going

to burn down, thankfully. Well, hopefully it don't burn down, but it's not going to burn down because

of a non-believer coming in. Paul says there's no distinction because we all have sinned. None of us

are right with God on our own. Christ, have faith in Christ, are considered righteous before God.

It doesn't matter what we did, honestly.

It doesn't matter what we're going to do. God sees us as righteous because we have trusted his son.

But all who are apart from Christ are rejected by God and they're subject to God's wrath at some

point. And that's what we talked about in chapter 1, starting in verse 18. We talked about the wrath

of God. Paul says through faith in Jesus, we are justified. The word justified, growing up, it was

how it was, what it meant was just if I'd never sinned, right? Paul writes it this way, and are

justified by 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 of

his divine forbearance, he passed over former sin.

Justified, it's a legal term like that you would hear in court. A person must be found innocent

to be declared righteous by or justified by the judge or just by the judge. They have to be found

innocent to do that. If they're found innocent, they go free. But if they're found guilty or

unjust, they face punishment. Since we are guilty, we can't be justified on our own. We have to find

another way. We're justified, Paul says, and actually he was inspired by God to write this. He

says it's by God's grace as a gift that we're justified. Grace gives God's righteousness to

those who put their faith in Jesus. That's what God's grace is. Grace means to get something we

don't deserve. It means unmerited favor. And Paul says those who are justified will be redeemed or

redeemed. That's the idea of delivering, especially by means of paying the price, paying a ransom for

a prisoner. Justified does not make us holy. We are still guilty before God, but we're treated

like we're holy. And that's called, that's only because Jesus' righteousness, his perfect life

is imputed on us. It's like putting on a coat of righteousness, right?

I have a story that might help you understand, and this is true. And I think it was, I can't

remember the state, but there was a judge and he had a case and there was a deaf couple who had

gotten married and they had lost some of their benefits. And once they were married, they

realized they didn't have enough money to pay the rent on their new place. They were $250 short

because they lost these benefits. They were guilty. The judge had no

other choice but to say you're guilty and you must pay. But here's the incredible thing. The judge

went to his office and got the $250 and paid it for this couple. They were justified. They were

guilty, yet they were justified. And that's what Jesus does for us. He's, he is paying the price

so we won't be punished. And that's really what propitiation means to the world. Propitiation

there's a lot of words that we need to understand to really understand this. So that's why I keep

telling you what they mean. But propitiation to the world means appeasing someone who is angry,

usually with a gift. And there's no sacrifice or no gift that we can offer on our own to appease

the wrath of God, except for one thing, I guess, spend an eternity in hell. But that

wouldn't be appeasing the wrath. That would be paying the price for eternity, for our

for what Paul's been talking about for over the last few weeks. But God himself, just like the

judge in this court case, God himself provided the only means through which we can avoid the

wrath of God, which his wrath could be appeased. And the only way that sinful man could be made

right before him. God sent his son as a propitiation because Jesus was the only

one who could meet God's holy law. None of us can meet God's law. We cannot keep it 100%.

And I hope you know that by now. But Jesus could. And why could he? Because he was God in the flesh,

right? He was perfect. He wasn't born under sin like we are. He was God. And he met the legal

demands. And he's the only one that could be the propitiator. And he's the only one that could be

the propitiation. First Peter 1, 18 and 19 says this, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile

ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver and gold, but

with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish. He's referred to a land like

a lamb without blemish because he didn't have sin. So what was salvation cheap? Absolutely not. It

cost Jesus everything. He had to leave heaven and come down. He had to suffer and die. He had to

bleed. And really, blood was the cost of salvation. And this is going to sound, this is going to be

hard to hear, but something had to die to pay the price for our sin. That's why Jesus or God gave the

Old Testament sacrifices. It was to show there was a price.

To be paid. And all of that was pointing to Christ. Let me read you a few verses. Hebrews 9, 22. It

says, indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood. If you know the Old Testament

law, every sin had to be purified with blood. Everything had to be purified with blood. It goes

on and says this, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. Hebrews 10, 1 says

this, for since the law, I don't have this one on the screen, for since the law has but a shadow of

the good things to come, instead of the true form of these realities, it can never be the same

sacrifices that are continually offered every year, made perfect those who draw near. What that's

saying is, all these sacrifices were pointing, were just pointing to Jesus. And they had to make

on the day of atonement, they had to make a sacrifice for the sins of Israel every single

year. Why? Because they did not forgive sin. It was just a picture. And their sin was there every

year. But here's the cool thing. Actually, Hebrews 10, 4 tells us that. It's impossible

for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. Only Jesus's blood can take away sin. Only

his death on the cross could take away sin, because he kept God's holy law. He was the only

spot with, or the lamb without blemish. He's the only one who could pay the price. His blood

was our perfect sacrifice. His blood was our propitiation. It's the one, that's what makes

us righteous, through faith in that. And this sacrifice shows that God was being fair when

he held back and did not punish those who sinned in the past. Like, God knew what's coming with

Jesus. And actually, we read about this already in Romans 2, 4. The passage says this, or do you

presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's

not going to punish those who sinned in the past? God knew Jesus was going to come. So those who sinned

in the past, he didn't judge immediately. And we can look in our world today, and we all see this

evil in our world, right? You see bad things happening. You ever wonder why? Why does God,

if there's a God, why does he allow those things? One of the reasons is this. First of all, we live

in a broken world, and we're under the power of sin. If we don't know Jesus, we're under the power

of sin. God knows we're under the power of sin. We're under the power of sin. We're under the power

of sin. God allows those things to go on because he's patient and wants it to lead to repentance.

2 Peter 3, 9 says, the Lord is slow to fulfill his promises, as some count slowness, but is

patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

God is slow, patient with sin. He wants people to turn to him,

at some point his patience is going to be done and there will be wrath god's character in god's

character he must punish sin but he's patient for a time being hoping that we turn to repentance

there's a couple of examples of this there's a lot of examples but i wrote a couple down

in the scripture god was patient in noah's day the world was evil and god wanted to destroy

the world and wipe out this evilness and he chose a man he called the man righteous was he perfect

no but he followed the lord the best he could and he he picked this man to build an ark but he didn't

build the ark in one week ark actually took between a hundred and a hundred and twenty years

to build in the meantime all of this evil in the world is still going on god was patient and he

actually used noah to preach the about him to speak about him to try to for people to repent

none did but when the time came god closed the door of the ark and wrath came it's going to be

the same for us he's patient now hoping that we turn but at some point it's going to change

sodom and gomorrah same thing it was as two cities filled with sin but abraham

said god if i can find ten well he started way high and then he kept working his way down

they they agreed on ten said if i can find ten righteous people ten people who tried to who

serve you will you spare the cities god says yep i will it was patient abraham couldn't find ten

i don't even think he found one god's wrath came god is patient verse 26 paul goes on and says

it was to show his righteousness in the present time so that he might be just and the justifier

who has faith in jesus i love this passage because god in his character he is a loving god

who wants to be merciful who by nature is merciful but he's also a god by his character

must punish sin he's a holy god and he has to punish sin

it's his character but through the blood and the propitiation of jesus he can be both things

he can judge sin and he can forgive sin by faith in jesus a lot of times we want to boast and that's

what the jews did they boasted like we have god's word we are the people chosen by god

paul asked a question because he knew this is a letter he knew that people would have an argument

so he asked

questions that he knows that will be asked he says what becomes of boasting it is excluded

by what kind of law by the law of works no by the law of faith for we hold that one is justified

by faith apart from works of the law look when we have faith in jesus how can we brag about it

how can we because we have done nothing god has done everything right he's the one that made the

he's the one who sent his son he's the one who had grace he's the one who came up with a plan of

righteousness and all we need to do is have faith in jesus and we're we think we can brag because

we're saved that's what he's saying or because we're saved that's the truth of the gospel can be

offensive to our pride like we want to think we're good people but paul just blasted us for the last

and showed us that we're not we want to think we are we want to be prideful and the gospel can be

offensive pride can make us feel our goodness is a substitute for faith in jesus but it isn't

riddle is not based on goodness it's based on this faith in christ alone faith in christ alone

i should say it this way faith alone in christ alone that's the only way we are made righteous

the commentator that i read his name is warren weirsby and i love what he wrote as an example to

this he says when the swimmer is safe from drowning he does not brag because he trusted the lifeguard

he wasn't saved he can't brag and say i trusted the lifeguard to save me right that's ridiculous

and we cannot brag of our faith we can only brag about jesus our savior he's the only one that we

can brag about the only one we can boast about paul goes on and ask a few more questions in in

verses 30 29 and 30 he says or is god the god of jews only is he not the god of gentiles also

yes of gentiles also since god is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised

through faith god is the god of the jews and he's the god of the gentiles and that includes all

everyone and he's the god of the gentiles and he's the god of the gentiles and he's the god of the

that includes everyone you're either a jew or you're a gentile god is one he doesn't have two

different plans of salvation the jews thought that they could be good and they had the law

and they were god's chosen people so they were good but god's not a god that has two plans of

salvation he has one and it is faith and there's only one god and he is the one who makes people

right with himself through that faith he has one more question in verse 31 do we

then overthrow the law by faith by no means on the contrary we uphold the law look he's saying

then what he's he's saying does the law mean nothing then this hypothetical question he says

by no means of course not the law reflects the character of god look god gave the law and it

shows his character this is my holy standard this is who i am and like i said earlier the law was

meant to reflect that we need a savior how could we say that god's character is bad and we don't

need it we can't we need the law because it shows us who we truly are on the inside righteousness

means to be right with god i don't know about you but i want to be right with god righteousness is

not a reward of bad behavior we only come to righteousness from a transfer of jesus righteousness

into our account through faith

and what he did on the cross romans 5 21 says for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin

so that in him we might become the righteousness of god jesus went to the cross for us he took

on our sin he died for our sin he didn't know any sin he was righteous but he died for us

and because he did that we can be wear that coat of righteousness

through faith and we can be right with god we can be right with god we can be right with god

through faith and what he did on the cross righteousness is a display of god's love for us

it is not a display our love for him righteousness is from god through his love righteousness is

a gift it's his unmerited favor as a gift for us ephesians 2 8 9 says this for by grace you have

been saved through faith it's not your own doing

it is a gift from god it's not a result of works so no one may boast what does that faith look like

this verse isn't on the screen either what does faith look like romans 10 9 says because if you

confess with your mouth that jesus is the lord and believe in your heart god raising from the dead

you will be saved when we understand we have this change of change of mind and we turn to christ

and we believe his death on the cross his shedding of blood paid the price for us he paid our sin debt

and we believe that he rose from the dead and he did you believe that he rose from the dead

we will be saved that is faith that is faith