As regular readers will know, I have been spending the last week giving a brief overview of the teaching of the book of Romans in connection with the atonement. I will continue with that next week, but I wanted to bring to your attention, if you are not already aware of it, Dr. John Piper’s masterful exposition of the whole book of Romans. Every single sermon is available to read and listen to online for free, and many of them are also available to watch. All 224 of these sermons are also available on a single mp3 DVD.
I would like to share a long extract with you today from one of these sermons because I think Piper expresses the nature of the problem the cross exists to solve better than I have heard anyone else express it:
God put Christ forward (he sent him to die) in order to demonstrate his righteousness (or justice). The problem that needed solving was that God for some reason seemed to be unrighteous, and wanted to vindicate himself and clear his name.
But what created that problem? Why did God face the problem of needing to give a public vindication of his righteousness? The answer is in the last phrase of verse 25: “on account of passing over sins done beforehand.”
Now what does that mean? It means that for centuries God had been doing what Psalm 103:10 says, “He does not deal with us according to our sins or requite us according to our iniquities.” He just passes over them. He does not punish them.
King David is a good example. In 2 Samuel 12 he is confronted by the prophet Nathan for committing adultery with Bathsheba and then having her husband killed. Nathan says, “Why have you despised the word of the Lord?” and God says, “Why have you despised me?” (2 Samuel 12:9-10).
David feels the rebuke of Nathan, and in verse 13 he says, “I have sinned against the Lord.” To this, Nathan responds, ‘The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.” Just like that! Adultery and murder passed over.
That is what Paul means in Romans 3:25 by the passing over of sins done beforehand. But why is that a problem? Is it felt as a problem by the secular mindset—that God is kind to sinners? How many people outside the scope of biblical influence wrestle with the problem that a holy and righteous God makes the sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45)? How many wrestle with the problem that God is kind to sinners? How many people struggle with the fact that their own forgiveness is a threat to the righteousness of God?
The secular mindset does not even assess the problem the way the biblical mindset does. Why is that? It’s because the secular mindset thinks from a radically different starting point. It does not start with the Creator rights of God to display the infinite worth of His glory. It starts with man and assumes that God will conform to his rights and wishes.
Look at verse 23: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” What’s at stake in sinning is the glory of God. Do you remember what God said to David when he was caught in adultery? “Why have you despised ME?”
David could have said, “What do you mean, I despised you? I didn’t despise you. I wasn’t even thinking of you. I was just red hot after this woman and then scared to death that people were going to find out. You weren’t even in the picture.”
And God would have said, “The Creator of the universe, the designer of marriage, the fountain of life, the one who made you king, was not even in the picture—that’s right. You despised me. All sin is a despising of me and my glory. All sin is a preference for the fleeting pleasures of the world over the everlasting joy of my fellowship. You demeaned my glory. You belittled my worth. You dishonored my name. That is the meaning of sin—failing to love my glory above everything else.”
The problem in God’s passing over sin (that the secular mindset does not grasp) is that God’s worth and glory and righteousness have been despised, and passing over it makes him look cheap.
Suppose a group of anarchists plot to assassinate President Bush and his cabinet, and almost succeed. Their bombs destroy part of the White House and kill some staff, but the President narrowly escapes. The anarchists are caught and the court finds them guilty. But then the anarchists say they are sorry and so the court suspends their sentences and releases them. What that would communicate to the world is that the President’s life and his governance of the nation are cheap.
That is what the passing over of sin communicates: God’s glory and his righteous governance are cheap and worthless.
Apart from divine revelation, the natural mind—the secular mind—does not see or feel this problem. What secular person loses any sleep over the unrighteousness of God’s kindness to sinners?
But according to Romans this is the most basic problem that God solved by the death of his Son. Read it again (verse 25b): “It [the death of his Son] was to demonstrate God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance (or patience) he had passed over former sins; (26) it was for a demonstration of his righteousness at the present time in order that he himself might be righteous . . .” God would be unrighteous if he passed over sins as though the value of his glory were nothing.
But he didn’t. God saw his glory being despised by sinners—he saw his worth belittled and his name dishonored by our sins—and rather than vindicating the worth of his glory by slaying his people, he vindicated his glory by slaying his Son.
I urge you now to embrace a biblical mindset this morning. If you never have done so before, do so now. I urge you to think and feel the way God does about the death of his Son.
And the test of that mindset is this: do you feel that, apart from the death of Jesus, God would be righteous not to forgive your sins? That he could vindicate his righteousness by requiring from us a price of suffering equal to the infinite worth of the glory we have despised?
When you look at the death of Christ what happens? Does your joy really come from translating this awesome divine work into a boost for self-esteem? Or are you drawn up out of yourself and filled with wonder and reverence and worship that here in the death of Jesus is the deepest, clearest declaration of the infinite worth of the glory of God and the Son of God?
Sermon on Romans 3:21-26 by John Piper© Desiring God.
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