Romans 3:25 Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood… I. ANTECEDENTLY TO THE DEATH OF CHRIST, THE SINS OF MEN WERE PASSED OVER IN THE FORBEARANCE OF GOD, i.e., God suffered them to go by unavenged. He "winked at the times of ignorance." So far was this strange toleration carried, that the very justice of the Divine Judge came in some danger, and were there no judgment to come, men really could not affirm that the world was ruled on principles of perfect righteousness. In the providence of the world vengeance limps but tardily in the footsteps of crime; while, not to speak of the impenitent who go unpunished, what shall we say of pre-Christian penitents who asked pardon for their sins, yet found no expiation for them? The blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin. The Divine policy was to leg sin pass, neither avenged nor atoned for, leaving still an open reckoning. II. AT LAST GOD CLEARED HIS CLOUDED ADMINISTRATION AND VINDICATED HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS (ver. 25). He held forth to public gaze an expiation of sin which did satisfy justice and demonstrate the severe impartial rectitude of the Divine judgments. The death of Jesus Christ is "set forth" as a public act done by God Himself for the illustration of His own justice. The word "propitiation" (or propitiatory) may either mean a victim offered in sacrifice for the recovery of Divine favour, or it may refer to the golden lid of the ark in the holy of holies, where God sat enthroned and propitious because on it was yearly sprinkled the blood of an atoning sacrifice. The death of Christ is in either case the one Sacrifice through which the sins of the world have been expiated and God has been enabled to extend favour to His guilty creatures. And this solemn and unparalleled act is at the same time the most impressive exhibition of the Divine vengeance against sin. Rather than that sins passed over so long should go altogether unavenged, God offered His Son for their expiation. By this He has cut off from men the temptation to misconstrue His earlier toleration of sins, or His unwillingness to forgive them. He did pretermit sin in His forbearance; but it was only because He had purposed in His heart one day to offer for it a satisfaction such as this. For this He could hold His peace through long centuries under injurious suspicion, because He knew that one day the awful Cross of His own Son would silence every cavil and give to the universe emphatic demonstration that He is a just God, who will by no means clear the guilty. III. Let us look at THE BEARING OF CHRIST'S DEATH ON "THIS PRESENT SEASON." The same public satisfaction for sin is adequate to justify God in forgiving sin now (ver. 26). Before His attitude to sin was one of forbearance. More than that it could not be, because no proper satisfaction for sin had as yet been offered. But now, since Christ has died, God has no need to "wink at" sin, and pass it by. He no longer holds out to penitents as He used to do a hope that it will one day become possible for Him to blot their sins. For He is now able to deal finally and effectually with sin. Justice has received all the satisfaction it needs or can ask for. No shade of suspicion, whether of feebleness or of injustice, can rest upon the Divine character, in acquitting at once any man for whose guilt Christ has made complete atonement. Now, therefore, God is in a position, not to pretermit sins only, but to remit them; not to promise forgiveness merely, but to confer it. This new attitude it is worth while to trace out in detail. 1. This propitiation having been amply adequate to vindicate Divine justice, Christ's death becomes obviously our redemption; i.e., it serves as a ransom, an offering in consideration of which we who were held in custody as sentenced prisoners of justice may now go free. The Son of Man has given His life as a ransom price in the stead of many; and that atoning ransom being adequate, we have "redemption through His blood — even the forgiveness of sins." So that it is so far from being unjust in God to acquit those for whom Christ's death is pleaded, that it would be plainly unjust to do anything else. The Deliverer has paid the price of blood for forfeited lives of guilty men; and Justice herself will now fling wide open her prison gates, tear across her handwriting of condemnation, and proclaim the ransomed to be justified from sin. This St. Paul terms "the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (ver. 24). 2. On the ground of this redemption, such a justifying must be entirely gratuitous (ver. 24). It must be so, because it is obviously independent of any action of men's own. It manifested the judicial impartiality and uprightness of the Lawgiver; but it was done at the bidding of love for the condemned, and its issue is free, unstinted grace to the undeserving. God must be just; but He chose this way of manifesting His justice, that through it He might also manifest mercy; and mercy rejoiceth over judgment. 3. A way of being justified which is so entirely gratuitous must be impartial and catholic. It is offered on such easy terms, because on no harder terms could helpless and condemned men receive it. Heathen or Jew, there is no distinction between men (ver. 22) such as could limit a gratuitous righteousness to one set of them rather than to another. All of them alike sinned; therefore they must be justified on a ground which cuts away every distinction of better or worse among them, of more deserving or less deserving. A righteousness which is given away gratuitously must be meant for all. 4. Yes, to all who will trust in it (ver. 26). For our justification is limited to faith, and that just because it is limited to the work of Christ. Our faith is the natural counterpart to Christ's atonement; it is our response to His sacrifice; it is our acceptance of God's terms. God offers to justify us, but He does so only because Christ has propitiated for our sins. If we accept His offer, we consent to be justified on that same ground of Christ's propitiation, for nothing else is offered. The very terms on which God historically vindicated His justice and wrought redemption tie us down and limit us to such faith as rests on Christ as the instrument of our justification. (J. Oswald Dykes, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; |
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