A Heritage Worth Having Pride In.

Romans 3:21–22 “²¹ But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— ²² the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction”

The apostle Paul, from Romans 1:18-3:20, has clearly and decisively established the utter hopelessness of all mankind, whether Jew or Gentile, to uphold the Law of God well enough to be declared righteous before Him. Paul established that we are completely hopeless based solely on the Law. If Romans ended at this point all, and especially his Jewish readers, would have no choice but to hang their heads in despair. The way to stand righteous before God, based on the law was hidden from their view because it was an impossibility.

Put on the sandals of Paul’s Jewish readers for a moment. From their days as children through their current day, all their hope had rested on their standing as Jews and their observance of the Law of God. Then Paul unleashes a barrage of attacks on everything they held dear as Jews. In some ways, his attacks remind me of today’s precision warfare. We have all seen some of the attacks the United States has had on Al-Qaeda strongholds in Iraq. We would see a loan truck on a dirt road filled with soldiers and weapons quietly moving in the dark of the night, and all of the sudden a missile appears out of nowhere and the truck disappears in an explosion followed by a cloud of smoke. That is what Paul had just done to the pride of the Jews. Look at verse nine; “What then? Are we Jews any better off? No not at all.” This was a precision hit on the Jewish pride in being God’s chosen people. But at least they still had the Law of God. Some of which was Hand delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai. They could certainly have confidence in the law! Then comes verses 19 and 20; “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” Another precision hit on the confidence of the Jews. Thankfully Paul didn’t end with 3:19-20!

Verse 21 and 22 would have been a huge source of encouragement to Paul’s readers. Up until this point their eyes had been hidden from any idea of how to have a right standing before God. It was as if they had blinders over their eyes. In verse 21, Paul removes their blinders when he wrote; “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law”. I imagine that some may have read these words and thought “Wait, you mean we can be righteous apart from the law?” Then Paul begins to remove the blinders from their eyes.

The word Paul uses for “manifested” in verse 21 is a key word. It means “to make visible or known what has been hidden or unknown whether by words, or deeds, or any other way.” Something very important taking place here. Paul is reassuring his readers that there is a way to stand before God as righteous apart from the law. This may have been confusing to his readers, especially the Jewish ones, because up until this time they thought their righteous standing came through their careful observance and obedience to the Law of God. But Paul just blew that theory to pieces. His Jewish readers, who also had a great deal of personal pride in their national heritage and their pious observance of the law, must have hung their heads in despair. Paul understood exactly what they were going through because he had experienced the same thing on the road to Damascus and Acts 9. Now that he had their full attention, he goes on to remove their blinders, but before he removes their blinders he lets them know that even though they had not seen it before, the answer had been in plain sight all along, “The Law and the Prophets bear witness to it.” With this statement he is letting them know that the answer was there all along. He goes on in the next few chapters to bring clarity to their spiritual vision.

There were a couple of important things taking place here, particularly in the hearts of his Jewish readers. First, Paul was letting the air out of their bubbles of pride. He let them know that they had done nothing at all to bring God to the point of choosing them as his people. As a result, they had no righteous standing before God based on their nationality. Second, their possession of the Law and limited and flawed observance of the Law, did nothing more than reveal how utterly lost they really were in their standing before God based on the law.

Please don’t miss the lesson here for us. God wants to completely strip us of any pride we may have in who we are in this life. He also wants to strip us of any pride we may have and what we obtain personally and spiritually. Paul understood this far better than his readers or us today, because none of them or any of us can come close to climbing the ladder of national heritage or strict observance of the law than he did. Yet he wrote in another epistle that all those things were garbage compared to what he now knew. What he now knew is that righteousness is placed on us by grace through faith in Christ and Christ alone, not based on who we are or what we have done. Our pride is humbly placed in God Who willingly sent His Son to die on a cross of shame, that His righteousness could be placed on all who would by grace through faith fully surrender to Him.

May we willingly accept what He accomplished on our behalf and may this be the heritage in which we take pride!