The Righteousness of God

Seems like you can revisit this over and over again and see something more. So ... I did.

Paul tells us why he wrote to the church at Rome, a group he didn't know. It was because "I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians" (Rom 1:14). Obligation for what? "to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome" (Rom 1:15). So he steps into his "I am not ashamed of the gospel" (Rom 1:16-17) and explains why. To follow the explanation, you need to pay close attention.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Rom 1:16-17)

Not ashamed of the gospel, he says. Why? "For it is the power of God." What power?" The power "unto salvation." Okay, that sounds good. Not ashamed of the gospel because it is the very power that God uses for salvation to all who believe. But he's not done. There is another "for" statement, another reason. How is the gospel the power of God for salvation? "For in it," he goes on to say, "the righteousness of God is revealed ..." Oh, now, see? That's another level of information. The gospel reveals God's righteousness, and, in revealing His righteousness it operates as the power that God uses to save those who believe. Well, why didn't you say so in the first place, Paul?

From there it only gets more interesting. The next verse begins with "for." The gospel, revealing God's righteousness, begins with "the wrath of God is revealed ..." (Rom 1:18). Oh, now, hang on. That can't be. That doesn't make sense. We all know that wrath is not "righteousness" and we all know that the God of the Old Testament was a wrathful God, but the God of the New Testament is not. Except ... that's not what Paul says. Paul says that God's righteousness is first revealed in His wrath. Knowing that this is hard to grasp, Paul spends Romans 1:18 through Romans 3:20 explaining why God is righteous in His wrath. We've earned it. In spades. To the full measure. Without excuse.

Then, having built this massive case against every single person on the planet (Rom 3:9), Paul says, "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested ..." (Rom 3:21). There it is again -- the righteousness of God being manifested, revealed, shown. (Paul says this 4 times in Rom 3:21-26). More of the gospel. He explained that God is righteous in His wrath against sin. Just how is the righteousness of God manifested here? First, it is "apart from the law" (Rom 3:21). We cannot be saved by the law (Rom 3:20). This righteousness, then, is not our following rules. Instead, it is "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe" (Rom 3:22). All have sinned -- fall short of God's glory (Rom 3:23) -- but we can be justified (declared righteous) "by His grace as a gift." (Rom 3:24). Oh, really? I mean, that's a sweet deal, but how is that righteous? Given what we've already seen about Man's sin condition, how is it right that we could be justified? "Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom 3:24). Jesus, then, redeemed us. He apolutrōsis us, literally "paid the price." That which we owe due to our sin He paid. And you know what that is. "The wages of sin is death" (Rom 6:23). He paid that on our behalf. He appeased ("propitiation") God's righteous wrath "by His blood" (Rom 3:25). Paul says that this "propitiation by His blood" "was to show God's righteousness" (Rom 3:25). It is the only way that God could be just and justifier of those who have faith in Jesus (Rom 3:26).

There are those who will tell you that an angry God is an evil God. They lie. Scripture says that God's righteousness is first shown in His wrath against sin. There are those who will tell you that Jesus didn't die for your sins. They lie. It was absolutely necessary that a just God obtain just payment for sin. These people that try to mitigate Scripture and twist it to mean the exact opposite of what it says do so with "another gospel" that does not reveal the righteousness of God, but something else. They suppose they're being generous with God. They do so by stripping Him of righteousness ... according to Scripture. He doesn't need that kind of help. In this they eliminate the gospel, the good news, that God is righteous -- righteously angry against our sin and righteously appeased by His Son's sacrifice on our behalf. It is "another gospel" that is not another gospel.