A new chapter opens in human history the achievement of Redemption in Christ Jesus.
Romans 3:21. In the desperation to which man's sin, brought home to him by the Law, has reduced him, a manifestation has been made of God's righteousness (Romans 1:17 *) for salvation outside of law, yet attested by law and prophets (see, e.g., Romans 4:3, Romans 1:17). The Jew regarded Moses-' law as a complete revelation of God's ways.
Romans 3:22 a. It is a righteousness realised through faith in Jesus Christ, destined for all that believe. The Divine righteousness displayed in the Gospel is communicative; sinners become God's righteousness in Christ, even as He became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Romans 3:22 b, Romans 3:23 sustains the all of Romans 3:22 a: Jew and Gentile are condemned without distinction; everywhere the glory of God, which shone in man's proper nature, is eclipsed under sin's shame.
Romans 3:24. If sinners then are to be justified, it must be gratuitously (cf. the gift of righteousness, Romans 5:17) a justification effected through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.To justify is to count righteous, p. 811, whether (Romans 2:13; Romans 3:4) the subject has been such in conduct or (as here) the opposite; the term is relative to status. The change of character ensues, as ch. 6 will show; God makes men righteous by treating them as such on Christ's account. Justification is forgiveness, and more; it implies reinstatement (see Romans 8:14-17; cf. Luke 15:20-24). By derivation redemption is recovery by ransom: the Greek term, however, like the English, came to include deliverance broadly; the stricter connotation holds in this connexion the thought of price, the sense of the immense cost of man's salvation (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:20 *, 1 Timothy 2:6), attaches to the word; Romans 3:25 speaks of the blood (Mark 10:45; 1 Peter 1:18 f.). How redeemed, Romans 3:25 a tells; with what issue, Romans 3:25 b, Romans 3:26.
Romans 3:25 a. God set Him forth in the eyes of all the worlda propitiation. in His blood. Propitiation (1 John 2:2 *) bears reference to the anger of God resounding from Romans 1:18 * onwards. The death of Jesus consummated the direful train of causation, at once natural and supernatural, under which sin worketh out death; on the Cross the law of sin and death took full effect for the sheltering sinner, final effect (cf. Romans 5:9). In heathen propitiations guilty men strove to appease the displeasure of their gods; here God both prescribes the means and is at the cost of expiation (Romans 8:32; 1 John 4:10). The intervening clause through faith makes the saved man a party to God's redeeming action; the propitiation avails as he identifies himself with it.
Romans 3:25 b, Romans 3:26. The expiation covers, retrospectively, the time of passing over of sins (RV; cf. Acts 17:30; Hebrews 10:1-4), when God acted in forbearance with wrong-doers. The present epoch witnesses the full exhibition of God's righteousness that of One who is Himself righteous and the justifier (righteous-er, as Du Bose renders it) of the man that is of faith in Jesus. The and is no but: the justification vindicates God's own righteousness (Romans 1:17 *), who in perfect rectitude reinstates, for Christ's sake. His disinherited children. Of faith is more than through faith (Romans 3:25): faith originates the new order.
Romans 3:27-31. Three consequences emerge: Jewish pride is abased (Romans 3:27 f.), the Divine Unity is safeguarded (Romans 3:29 f.), and the Divine Law vindicated (Romans 3:31). The excluded glorying is that of Romans 2:17-20, the boast asserted under the law of works (Romans 2:21-25; Romans 4:4 f.; cf. Romans 10:3) quashed when faith is recognised as the norm of God's kingdom; for (mg.) we account that justification comes to man (qua man, not qua Israelite) by faith apart from works of law: such a calculus annihilates boasting (cf. Romans 4:1-3). Incidentally. this principle guards the unity of God: God being one, there is only one way to set men right with Him; He will justify the Circumcision out of faith, and the Uncircumcision through that faith in salvation, as in sin, they stand on an equal footing. Faith is, to Jews, the source of salvation, excluding works; for Gentiles, standing afar off, the pathway to salvation. Finally, we (Christians) establish law, instead of overthrowing it (cf. Romans 6:15, Romans 8:4), by means of faith. Paul saw in faith a law (Romans 3:27) within and beyond the law; he found here the basal principle of God's dealings with mankind (Romans 4:3 ff.; cf. Hebrews 11). His conception of law has deepened along with his conception of righteousness.