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Romans 3:25-26: God displayed Jesus publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt profits a man nothing when he is pleased with God.\u201d <\/span> That is Job\u2019s complaint about his situation and the world he lives in. <\/span> The righteous and wicked alike suffer, and it appears that being righteous makes no difference. <\/span> That raises a larger dilemma: If righteous people suffer, then God must be unjust. <\/span> Is it possible for both God and man to be righteous? <\/span> Can both God and a suffering <\/em> man be righteous? <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Elihu, like Job\u2019s three friends, has a simple solution to the problem. <\/span> Can both God and man be righteous? <\/span> No, they answer. <\/span> Because God is just, Job cannot be. <\/span> Justice means giving everyone his due, and because Job suffers, he is obviously being paid the wages of the wicked. <\/span> God is just, and therefore cannot acknowledge that Job is just. <\/span> There\u2019s room in Elihu\u2019s world only for one Just Person \u2013 and that\u2019s God. <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n But we know that things are not so simple. <\/span> From the first chapter, we know that Job is a righteous man, and so we are left with the dilemma. <\/span> Does righteousness make any difference? <\/span> Does it profit to be righteous? <\/span> Is God\u2019s world big enough to hold both a righteous God and a righteous, suffering man? <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n As Paul sees things, the gospel addresses that dilemma very directly. <\/span> Jesus performs an act of complete righteousness. <\/span> He fulfills the human side of the covenant fully by giving Himself in utter fidelity to the Father and by giving Himself in love for His people. <\/span> He does what the law demands: He loves the Father with His whole heart and soul and mind, and He loves His neighbors as Himself. <\/span> <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n At the same time, Jesus displays the love of God for us, fulfilling God\u2019s side of the covenant. <\/span> He is the Father\u2019s gift to His people, the pledge of God\u2019s faithfulness to His covenant and His people. <\/span> Jesus is the great demonstration of the righteousness, the covenant fidelity, of God. In Jesus, the justice of God is revealed from faith to faith. <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n And, importantly, Jesus achieves all this in suffering and in death. <\/span> He fulfills our obligations to God by giving Himself to death in faithful love, and He fulfills God\u2019s covenant promises and demonstrates God\u2019s justice by offering Himself on the cross. <\/span> Through this one act of righteousness, Jesus reveals that God is both just and the justifier of His people. <\/span> More than that, Jesus is in His own person the just man and the justifying God. <\/span> In Jesus\u2019 death, the righteous God and the righteous suffering man come together without confusion, without separation, without division, without change. <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n By faith we share in the cross of Jesus, His own covenant faithfulness. <\/span> By faith, we are co-crucified with Him. <\/span> And by receive this feast in faith, we are conformed to the cross of Jesus. <\/span> By sharing the cross we fulfill, through Jesus, our covenant fidelity to God and our covenant love for our brothers. <\/span> By sharing in the cross, we are a continuing demonstration that God\u2019s world is big enough to hold both righteous sufferers and a righteous God. <\/span> Conformed to the cross of Jesus at this meal, we are the continuing demonstration that God is both just and the justifier of those who have the faith of Jesus. <\/span> <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Romans 3:25-26: God displayed Jesus publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology-soteriology"],"yoast_head":"\n