From the opening lines of his letter to the Roman Christians, Paul was laying down the principle distinctions between supposed justification by “works of the law” (legalism), and a true righteousness by faith response to everything that God has already done for the human family in Christ Jesus. From his premise Paul then draws the conclusion “that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Rom. 3:28).
Over the centuries two main arguments have arisen from this simple statement of Paul’s. First is the idea that the Law of God (specifically the Ten Commandments) can be thrown out completely because we don’t need it for our justification, or for anything else. The claim under this view is that “since the cross” we’re living by “grace” and don’t need the Law, which is labeled as being part of the “old covenant” that was “nailed to the cross.” The second idea is that somehow faith justifies us; that “works of righteousness” have merit. The former notion is antinomianism; the latter is legalism. Both are ditches running along side the highway of truth.
Righteousness by faith, or justification by faith, must first and foremost have an object toward which the faith is directed. There must be a reason for the faith. Why do we believe? In what do we have faith? Faith is not a mental assent to a list of facts or data. Faith is not an emotion, even though we often define it as a “heart-felt appreciation.” Faith is a living dynamic operative in the life of the believer that impels a continuous creative change in the one who believes. Paul describes it in Galatians 5:6 as “faith which works by love.” Or, faith that is motivated by that heart appreciation.
Which immediately raises another question: “heart appreciation of what”? Has God done anything for which we should be grateful? Yes, we all have memorized John 3:16, but how often do we read verse 17? “God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the WORLD through Him might be saved.” First Timothy 1:15 says, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” How many in the world are sinners? “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Then for whom did Christ die?—the whole world of lost sinners.
In the section of Romans we’re focused on this week Paul doesn’t leave his readers in despair after telling us we have all come short of the righteousness we need. Immediately he says, but the good news is that God has already freely (liberally, without measure or restraint) justified us by the grace that is in Christ Jesus (vs. 24). What God liberally bestowed upon the sinful world is an “abundance of grace and of the gift of [Christ’s] righteousness” (Rom. 5:17).
Getting ahead of ourselves just a bit, we read “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (Rom. 5:18). Christ, as the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8), reversed the condemnation that fell upon the human race when Adam sinned in the Garden, thus placing the entire human race (in Adam) on a second probation. “As soon as Adam sinned, the Son of God presented Himself as surety for the human race, with just as much power to avert the doom pronounced upon the guilty as when He died upon the cross of Calvary” (Review and Herald, March 12, 1901). This reversal of condemnation is often referred to as “forensic” or legal justification because it has to do with the Law which all (except Christ) who have been born into the world have transgressed.