GOD'S GREAT NEWS for MAN'S GREAT PROBLEM - Romans 1-8

Crucifixion Love

Let me begin with a true story about crucifixion love, out of the April, 1996, issue of Brio magazine. "Billy was getting anxious. Throughout the hike on Mount Hood, he'd grown a little tired of taking 'wait' and 'maybe' for an answer from the leaders about glissading (sliding down an ice patch using his ax for control). Hey, if I'm going to work this hard to climb a snowcapped 11,000-foot mountain, I want to have some fun, he thought. But because of the dangers, he'd been discouraged from trying anything until the descent.

"After weeks of training, making it to the peak was literally the best high these 10 guys from a juvenile detention facility had ever experienced. They'd conquered the tallest mountain in Oregon! Taking some time to soak in the view, the leaders gathered the guys around for 'a little mountaintop tradition.' Dave Turple and Marty Lowen, two of the leaders, talked about the importance of reaching for goals that seem beyond your grasp -- like what the boys had just attained. 'You're not 10 juvenile delinquents,' Dave said, 'but unique creations of God -- men who can accomplish anything if the Lord is in control of your lives.' Marty talked about the goal of heaven and what a man named Jesus Christ did to allow them to reach that goal. He closed by passing around bread and grape juice for Communion. Then he asked Dave to pray. Dave was a big guy -- 6 feet 4 inches, 220 pounds. His prayer wasn't long and flowery, and he ended by simply saying, 'God, help me show Your love to these boys.' ...

"Then they began their descent, roped together in three groups. Marty took the first group. Billy was in the last group. Dave, the most experienced of the leaders, alternated between all three. About an hour down the mountain -- near a point where the trail seemed safe -- Billy finally got the green light to glissade. He unhooked himself from his climbing partners, fell to the seat of his pants, put his ice ax behind him for control and started to slide toward the middle group. Almost immediately, however, Billy accidentally dropped his ice ax and lost control. Unfortunately, the place where he'd chosen to unhook himself was very deceptive. He couldn't see how steep it was -- and how fast the ice would take him. The third group leader yelled 'FALL' at the top of his lungs, trying to warn the groups below.

"Dave looked up and saw Billy zooming toward them. He hustled across the ice and dropped to the ground, hoping his huge frame would stop Billy from sliding to certain death. He also planted his ice ax in the snow for extra stability. In an instant, Billy collided with Dave -- full force. Those who witnessed the collision said fog briefly covered the place where Dave had anchored himself. When the fog cleared moments later, all that remained was the ice ax, two hats ... and a glove. Both men had tumbled hundreds of feet to their deaths.

"Three days later, at the memorial service for Billy, one of his friends who had been on the trip said, 'I can't believe that a man like Dave -- someone who had a wife, a daughter and a nice life -- would die for someone like us.'"

When Billy found himself in a deceptively dangerous place, falling headlong down the mountain, careening out of control to his certain death, Billy personified humanity "all under sin" as Paul has been describing us in Rom. 1:18-3:20. Unless someone steps in to save us, our death is certain. But today we meet our Savior in Rom. 3:21-26. He had a paradise with God to lose, yet He left all that to come to earth. He came not to live a great life and garner fame for Himself, but to die a great death. We are now at the central passage of Romans 1-8. There at the very center of the gospel, we find the cross of Christ.

The Cross of Christ: God's Righteousness Infused Into Believers Through Faith - 3:21-23

The first phrase of vs. 21 is "But now apart from the Law God's righteousness has been manifested." This begins with one of my favorite Biblical phrases: "But now..." When all is darkest in the Bible and there seems to be absolutely no hope for redemption, no breath of help from God, comes this little contrast: "But ..."

Returning to our stark courtroom scene we have been speaking about in these studies, consider our helpless state: the Supreme Court of Heaven has declared us GUILTY! There is no recourse under the Law on which to mount an appeal. The gavel has fallen, and its sound echoes in our souls. The trial seems to be over. Desperate in our condemned state, our only option is to throw ourselves upon the mercy of the court. We jump over the rails, run to the open area before the Judge's lofty bench, and throw ourselves onto the cold, bare floor before Him. The arguments against our sin are so convincing that we are silenced, attempting no longer to justify ourselves with words of empty excuse. We are without excuse before God, and we know it. We don't even have voice enough to utter a meek "Have mercy, Your Honor!" BUT NOW ... just as the trial seems to be over, at this strategic moment, God the Father as Judge hits the gavel again, calls the court to order, and introduces the court appointed Advocate. A hush falls as this Advocate walks through the back doors, graciously comes down right beside us where we lie on the floor before the Judge, looking questioningly into our eyes as if to ask if we want His help. Our glance of gratitude affirms our answer, and He lifts us up gently by the shoulders, moving us that we might sit in His chair. He will now do business with the court, on our behalf. We are no longer alone in our sin and guilt.

This contrast at the beginning of vs. 21 heralds the glories to come: "But now ..." and here comes the great news, at just the right time, the strategic moment of our crying need. Paul announces with drama, "But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets." Apart from the Law, the standard that could not make us right internally in our hearts and that could not make us legally justified in the courtroom of God, God has announced a means of making us right, both internally in our hearts and in terms of our legal standing before God. What the Law could not do, God has done. The Law showed sin; God showed salvation from sin. The righteousness of God has been manifested now in saving believers, apart from the Law.

But what is the "righteousness of God?" It is the key phrase in this passage, stated four times in six verses. This is one of the key phrases in all of Romans 1-8, introduced in the theme verses of Rom. 1:16, 17. We first encountered this phrase back in Rom. 1:17, in a very abbreviated form. Paul now takes this summary statement from 1:17 and expands it with great force as the main theme of 3:21-26. This is one of the most discernible literary techniques employed by Paul in Romans: the brief mention of a primary subject early in the letter, with full development coming at a latter stage in the epistle.

When we studied the righteousness of God in Rom. 1:17, we formally defined "the righteousness of God" this way: it is God's holy yet loving character, judging sin yet saving sinners by giving us His righteousness when we believe in Jesus Christ. The point of development in this passage is that Paul shows us how this righteousness of God was demonstrated objectively in history at the cross of Christ. If we cannot wrap our arms around a phrase as large as "the righteousness of God," we really only need understand the cross to see God's righteousness on parade in human history. The cross translates God's holy yet loving character into a plan of salvation that simultaneously judges sin and yet saves sinners by offering sinners God's righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ. Isaiah in Is. 51:4-8 couples the concepts of God's righteousness and His salvation. The cross couples God's righteousness and his salvation in history.

Thus, the subject matter for our study today is the cross of Christ, the public demonstration of the righteousness of God, His great plan of salvation revealed.

So, God's righteousness has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and Prophets. God's greatest work of art, a piece of enduring beauty and magnificence that will dramatically impact all who behold it, has just been revealed. For the first time in history, its canvas covering has been ceremoniously removed. God has been carefully designing and crafting this masterpiece since the dawn of time, and at various intervals He allowed certain of His chosen ones to behold various glimpses of the masterpiece. These chosen ones were Moses and the Prophets, who told of the unique facets of the masterpiece they saw in the Law and the Prophetic writings. The great masterpiece He was preparing was the cross of Christ. This is what "witnessed by the Law and Prophets" at the end of this verse means.

But where did the Law foreshadow the cross of Christ? The Law includes the first five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Genesis portrays the cross and resurrection in Gen. 3:15, when the Seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent that bruised His heel; Genesis tells us how God took and slaughtered innocent animals to cover Adam and Eve's naked sin; Genesis speaks of Abraham offering up a son who carried a bundle of wood up a hill, with a ram given by God as substitute for Isaac; Genesis shows us how Judah offered himself to be surety for his brother Benjamin. Exodus shows us the first passover lamb, whose blood was spilled to cover the sins of Israel. Leviticus places the atoning sacrifices at the very heart of the nation's worship, and Lev. 16, 17 place the Day of Atonement at the heart of the first five books, just as the cross of Christ is placed in the heart of Rom. 1-8. The blood of the he-goat offered on Yom Kippur is one of the greatest foreshadows of the blood of Christ on Calvary. Certainly the story of Num. 21:1-9 with the bronze snake being lifted up as a means of salvation was a clear foreshadow of the cross of Christ. Jesus said so in his conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:14. In Deuteronomy, the history of circumcision from Deut. 10:16 to 30:6 shows that God alone can act to change the human heart. This is just a sampling of passages within the Law witnessing to the cross as the manifestation of God's righteousness apart from the Law. His righteousness is apart from the Law because the Law only bore witness to it; the cross of Christ revealed what the Law only foresaw in shadowy terms.

But what about the Prophets? Here the material is overwhelming, for in many ways the chief office the Prophets performed was to foretell the coming of the Messiah and foreshadow the salvation to come through His death. Although the Psalms are not strictly prophetic material, they fit into the broader category of what Paul is saying here, since the phrase "the Law and Prophets" encompasses the entire Hebrew Scriptures. The Psalms are full of Messianic foreshadowings, but Ps. 22 stands above all the rest as a stunning picture of the cross of Christ, even down to some of the most minute physiological details. Isaiah's whole book was designed to highlight the life and ministry of the Suffering Servant, whose passion is identical to Christ Jesus in that wonderful pinnacle of the Prophetic material of the OT, Is. 52:13-53:12. Jeremiah looks forward to the new covenant of the blood of Christ in Jer. 31:31-34, as does Ezekiel in Ez. 36:24-28. Hosea gives us the heart-breaking picture of redemption when Hosea is bidden by God to purchase Gomer his whore-wife at the town slave market. Jonah's life is given to save the ship; he goes into the belly of the whale for three days, as Jesus was buried in the belly of the earth for three days. Micah 5:1-5 speaks of the coming King born in Bethlehem who "will be our peace," and Zechariah speaks of the thirty pieces of silver at which Messiah's life will be valued by the treacherous nation. The Prophets tell the story of the cross, but each tells only a singular facet of the brilliant diamond.

But if the Prophets only saw single facets of the diamond, what did the whole diamond look like? In Rom. 1:22, Paul tells us how the whole diamond, the whole of God's righteousness, has been revealed in history at the cross. A very helpful way of studying this verse is to focus on the two prepositions "through" and "into." We find that God's righteousness is manifested "through" faith in Jesus Christ, "into" all those who believe. This first prepositional phrase shows us specifically HOW this new righteousness of God has been unveiled: THROUGH FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST. This is the first time Paul announces that salvation comes by faith, since he introduced this main theme back in Rom. 1:17. Faith is thus extremely important for the human caught in the web of sin and looking for a way out.

But doing a word study on "faith" alone in this context would not be satisfactory, since it is specifically "faith in Jesus Christ." Faith in anyone or anything else does not disclose the righteousness of God. God's righteousness is revealed by faith in Jesus Christ ALONE for the following reasons: 1) He is the one spoken about and witnessed in the Law and the Prophets, thus the entire weight of OT revelation points to Him, 2) He is the ONLY Lamb of God, appointed and sent by God to take away the sin of the world, 3) As the only One who fulfilled man's side of the covenant through a perfect life, He is the only One who could willingly choose to take man's sin upon Himself. There are no other saviors available, as Rom. 5:12-21 points out, since only Adam and Jesus Christ were unstained by original sin, and finally, 4) He "loved God" wholly by obedience unto death on a cross, and He "loved us to the end" by dying for us. He alone thus fulfilled the Law, submitting to a God-imposed sacrifice for our sakes that satisfied the demands of God's holiness to require payment for our sin. God accepted and authenticated this sacrifice through the resurrection. This is why our faith must be in Jesus Christ alone. He is the only God-ordained Savior. If we want God's righteous salvation, we must have faith in Jesus Christ. Salvation is in no other Name, now or forever.

The truly great news is that our faith in Him makes all that He is and all that He did effective for us and applied to us. Just like the "glance of faith" in the story of the bronze serpent in Num. 21 was effectual for healing and saving their lives, so the "glance of faith" in Jesus Christ makes His sacrifice apply to us, makes His life our new life, makes His righteousness become our righteousness.

Taking the second preposition now, God's righteousness is defined not only "through faith in Jesus Christ," but also "INTO all the believing ones." This is one instance where the original Greek sheds light on the depth of meaning Paul meant to portray. Here are two differing translations of this crucial phrase in Rom. 3:22: "Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe;" (NASB) and a more verbatim translation of the Greek text: "Even a righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ INTO (eiV) all the believing ones;". As the diagram below shows, there are two prepositions in Greek meaning "to":

Two Greek Prepositions for "To:" One Means "Toward," Another Means "Into" (Diagram)

The glorious news in Rom. 3:22 is that God's righteousness is no longer outside ourselves, witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, but now through faith in Jesus Christ God INFUSES His righteousness right INTO us, thereby making HIS righteousness become OUR righteousness, and fully restoring us to a right relationship with Himself on the sole condition of believing in Jesus Christ!! God set out to change the human heart and make people right with Him. We were all profoundly unable in and of ourselves to make ourselves right. So, God did what we could not do, and infused into the believer His righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ, that we would be righteous indeed and placed in a right relationship with God forever.

This is the essence of the great news to me: God did for me what I could not do for myself. But more than that, God changed my heart when I could not change it at all. But more than that: God took His own righteous character and placed it INTO me, that all of His righteousness became my righteousness!! What a transaction for me: He takes my unrighteousness onto Himself, dying with that burden on His shoulders at the cross, and freely gives me His righteousness inside me that I may never lose it. It is deposited inside me by God: I cannot lose it. His righteousness becomes my righteousness, forever. Thus, my heart is changed forever, no matter what befalls me!!!

There is unparalleled changing power in this great news. The reason Christianity has persisted for 2,000 years is because it WORKS!! It is not based on man's best efforts, but on God's righteousness INFUSED into believers. It works because God's righteousness within a person changes the person from the inside out. Of course sinful behaviors will crop up again and again, and we will fail, but the change that happens internally in the believer is unmistakable and undeniable. It is simple fact.

Never has this been brought home to me more than in the past year, as I have watched Blythe's sister be changed by God's righteousness infused into her through faith in Jesus Christ. Before she was always running, never staying put; yet now in the last year, she has been more focused and centered than I have ever imagined she would be, staying home to be with her children as much as possible. Before she never thought in a deep way, jumping in her thoughts from one inane thing to the next; yet now in the past year she has studied the Bible for hours, journalled through several large leather-bound journals, and shared Christ with virtually everyone she knows. Before her eyes were always full of bright pain and anxious movement, and they could never hold your gaze; now they are far more peaceful, holding your gaze for minutes on end. Before her speech was quick, full of pat answers and ungrounded optimism, but now when she speaks it is slower, more peaceful, and far more wise. Before she lived life totally based on outside appearances: the clothes she wore, the cars she drove, the community she lived in, the clubs she belonged to; now she lives her life on the inside in intimacy with her indwelling God, whose righteousness is now her righteousness. I could easily take the whole rest of our time together chronicling the changes wrought by God's righteousness infused into her life.

Josh McDowell ends his book More Than a Carpenter with this same assertion about God's power to change us. He concludes by describing the change in his life and the life of his father when they accepted Christ: "Usually the changes take place over several days, weeks, or months, even a year. My life was changed in about six months to a year-and-a-half. The life of my father was changed right before my eyes. It was as if somebody reached down and turned on a light bulb. I've never seen such a rapid change before or since. My father touched whiskey only once after that. He got it as far as his lips and that was it. I've come to one conclusion. A relationship with Jesus Christ changes lives. You can laugh at Christianity, you can mock and ridicule it. But it works. It changes lives. If you trust Christ, start watching your attitudes and actions, because Jesus Christ is in the business of changing lives." It works because God's righteousness is INFUSED into believers, and His righteousness is a powerful force that will not be denied.

But is this most supreme gift of His righteousness available to some and not to others? Is there preferential treatment? NO. Paul tells us that "there is no distinction." Paul simply says here that "God's Righteousness Infused into Believers Through Faith in Jesus Christ" is THE ONE PLAN OF GOD FOR SALVATION FOR ALL BELIEVERS. There is now nor ever will be any other plan.

Paul further documents this in Rom. 3:23, showing that all believers who are infused with God's righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ START FROM THE COMMON GROUND OF SIN. There can be no distinction between them, the Jews can lay claim to no better position, since "there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." In a church with a large contingent of Jewish Christians, who may well have misunderstood their total commonality with Gentiles under the new covenant, Paul wants them to be reminded again that God makes no distinction between them and their Gentile brothers and sisters, since "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

The cross is God's great news solving man's great problem of sin, and the three crosses on Calvary exemplify simultaneously God's great solution to sin and man's only two options in facing his own sin. An anonymous poet tells us,

"A Hill with Three Crosses --
One cross where a thief died IN SIN
One cross where a thief died TO SIN
A center cross where a Redeemer died FOR SIN"

God has solved the problem of human sin at the cross of Christ: but have we each accepted His solution?

Thus, God's righteousness has been revealed through faith in Jesus Christ and is infused into all believers. This is a bold claim, a radical refinement of the definition of God's righteousness. How did God actually pull this off? After all, we have all agreed with Paul about the depth and horror of our own sin ... how did God so magically do away with our sin, so that all we have to do is respond to Jesus Christ in faith? How did God accomplish this "deeper magic," as C.S. Lewis calls it?

The Cross of Christ: God's Righteousness Demonstrated -- Rom. 3:24-26

Fortunately, Paul tells us in compacted detail in vs. 24-26 exactly how God accomplished this magical salvation. Paul begins by describing those who are "being justified," or those who are "being made righteous." The most fundamental issue to note about this term "being justified" or "being made righteous" is that it is in the PASSIVE voice. This tells us that Someone other than ourselves has to justify us or make us righteous. Only God can effect this justification on our behalf. When it comes to being made righteous, we must be made righteous GOD'S WAY, which is through faith in Jesus Christ. Only God's way of being made righteous works to change the human heart, because humanity can play no active role in changing itself, and God has demonstrated only One way of making people righteous: through faith in Jesus Christ.

Now, if we are cynical, we may say, "Dorm, it sounds great ... but what does it cost?" For us, it costs nothing. This is what Paul means when he says that believers are "being made righteous AS A GIFT, BY HIS GRACE." Paul is empassioned to preach this great news, because it comes as a FREE GIFT from GOD. We can trust in the manufacturer!! It is a gift we clearly don't merit in any way, since we cannot make ourselves righteous on our own. This phrase "as a gift by His grace" makes the "His" emphatic: it is by HIS grace as a freely given gift, not according to OUR works. To say it another way, all other religions can be spelled with just two letters -- D-O, while the gospel of Jesus Christ is spelled by four letters -- D-O-N-E!

Just the other day I had the privilege of delivering a gift to a friend. It was a monetary gift, from one community of believers to another. My brother who received this gift looked at me when I told him the gift was coming, and his eyebrow was cocked as if to ask "What do you mean I'm getting a gift ... where's the hitch?" His reaction was so utterly human: we always wonder where the string is attached when we receiveany gift. But I just looked at him and said to him, "Brother, it's done. The gift is given. All you have to do is receive it. Just like the cross." That is the pure beauty of God's gift at the cross of Christ: all we have to do is receive it. It is so simple, it seems scandalous. But the fact remains: it is a free gift, by His grace!!

But while it cost us nothing and is a freely given gift by His grace, it certainly was not cheap. It came at great personal cost to God. The price was the public humiliation of the cross. This "cost" of our salvation, our being made righteous, is what Paul refers to in the phrase "through the redemption in Christ Jesus." Let's look at what the term "redemption" meant to Paul's readers.

The picture here is of the slave trade in the Roman world. As Rome conquered various cities or countries, some of the best and most able-bodied young men and women would be captured and made immediately into slaves of their foreign conqueror. They would thus be transported to Rome or one of the other great cities, and taken to the auction block to go to the highest bidder. Now, imagine if you had been on that auction block. You had been treated like an animal, stock to be sold. You were valued purely on the basis of your external characteristics: height, weight, good teeth, body shape, etc. Imagine how demeaning it would be when potential buyers asked to view your whole body without clothing to make sure there were no hidden blemishes or weaknesses. The whole process of being sold as a slave is ultimately demeaning. Finally you are yanked up on the auction block, and the leering crowd begins the bidding. Perhaps someone in the back bids $500, then it goes up to $600, then up to $700, where it seems the bidding will end. Your buyer looks particularly ugly and dirty. But just as the auctioneer says, "Going once, going twice ..." a young man with scarred hands and face comes into the back and shocks the crowd by offering $100 million of his own hard-earned money to buy you. In one masterstroke, your Buyer purchased you, silencing all others because He valued you so highly. Redemption is all about being purchased by Someone who values you at a price you never thought you were worth. But He gladly paid it, and purchased you for the express purpose of buying your freedom. What a transaction! No wonder Paul revels in wearing the bond-slave ring of such a Master!!

But there is more glory to come in this passage. In Rom. 3:25, Paul summarizes all of God's redemption history in the OT and lands the theme of God's dealings with man's sin at the cross of Christ. Verse 25 explains the "redemption of Jesus Christ, whom God set forth publicly AS AN ATONING SACRIFICE." Some of your Bibles might read "as a propitiation," but who on earth uses that word? Almost nobody! So, scratch through the meaningless word and put "AS AN ATONING SACRIFICE." Now, this verse tells us two things immediately about this atoning sacrifice: 1) It is accomplished "by His blood," and 2) It is effective "through faith." This is helpful to us, but let's think a little more about what an "atoning sacrifice" would have meant to Paul and his readers, especially his Jewish readers.

This brings to mind the "Day of Atonement," Yom Kippur, especially to Paul's Jewish readers. They would have thought of how the he-goat was taken by the High Priest on that day and sacrificed, his blood being taken into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled on the mercy seat holding the ark of the covenant and then on the ground in front of the ark, to atone for the sin of the whole nation of Israel for that year. Thus, the whole scene foreshadows how Christ was our atoning sacrifice on the Cross, where we are sprinkled with His blood by faith and have our sins covered.

This reminds me of one of the greatest days in my life, the day I had the privilege of celebrating Yom Kippur in Jerusalem in 1994. On that day, the highest of the High Holy Days, the whole nation of Israel collectively screeches to a halt. By law, no cars are allowed on the road, since that would constitute the work of "building a fire" as the pistons fire within the engine, so car travel is pretty strictly forbidden (although we did see some cars out and about). On that day, a friend of mine and I got up early and hiked from the hills overlooking Bethlehem south of Jerusalem right down the mostly silent streets into the Old City itself. It was a quiet walk, where we could hear the birds sing all the way, unlike hearing the din and honking of busy traffic. When we arrived in the Old City, we wound our way through the ancient streets to the Western Wall, and we heard the "wailing" and the loud chanted praying of the 200 or so Hasidic Jews who were praying at the wall. We heard them long before we saw them. I understood then why it is the "Wailing Wall." I heard in their praying both a wailing for their own sin, which is a very real and moving part of the Yom Kippur observance, and a tacit yearning for a final atonement to remove their sin. I was very moved as I stood and watched, praying for them to find lasting atonement at the cross of Jesus Christ. Then we turned to go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, to the historic site of Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified, and I read there a study on the seven words Jesus spoke on the cross. Later that night, to celebrate our Christian Yom Kippur, I had the great privilege of teaching about those seven words to a group of believers. I will never forget that Yom Kippur in Jerusalem, not because of anything I saw or did ... but because we had the joy and privilege of worshiping Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice on the cross. We have an atonement that lasts forever in Jesus Christ!! "It is finished," He said. It is still finished.

What is glorious about this atonement on the Cross is how it cancels out our sin:

Thus, in terms of how we have defined sin as "self-sufficiency" and "self-centeredness," the cross of Christ cancels out our sin perfectly. His righteousness replaces our unrighteousness. His gracious trade supercedes our bad trades of sin.

But what about the root problem of sin where we say to God "I Don't Need You?" From the cross, Jesus Christ looks at us sadly and lovingly at the same time, and says, "Yes ... You DO Need ME ... Specifically ME ... No one else will do." By humbling Himself unto obedience at the cross, He thus disproved and cancelled profoundly the very basis of our sin, showing us in every possible way that we do indeed NEED HIM; specifically HIM.

John Stott, in The Cross of Christ, which is required reading to understand the depth of the cross and what it means for us, supports a very helpful claim about the essence of the cross: "We dared to affirm [God's] 'self-satisfaction by self-substitution' as the essence of the cross." This is the best and most concise statement on the meaning of the substitutionary atonement of the cross that I have ever read.

But there is more to this marvelous verse. Not only is the cross His atoning sacrifice by His blood through faith, it was THE defining demonstration of His righteousness in two ways: 1) At the end of vs. 25, it was a demonstration that God had righteously and purposely chosen to pass over the sins of mankind previously committed because He knew that all of man's sin would be paid for in full at the Cross, and 2) In vs. 26, it was a demonstration of His righteousness in that God Himself was both the Just Judge and the Justifier of the one who has faith in Christ.

The end of vs. 25 explains how God could remain totally righteous and holy and yet at the same time "pass over" all the sins of mankind across all of history, the sins "previously committed." This is where the cross was necessary as a demonstration of God's righteousness: both to show how He righteously prosecuted and punished man's sin at the cross, and to show how He had been faithful to His promises to provide a way of escape from His punishment, a "pass over" with the hope of salvation from the certain death that comes with sin.

The cross thus puts to rest any questions about God's righteousness in allowing human sin to go on for so long across time without any punishment. The Hebrew Scriptures are organized around the theme of God's promise to bring mankind His salvation from the problem of sin. It is a book that starts with a promise and ends with the promise preserved but as yet unfulfilled. But in Jesus Christ and His cross, the promise is made good. At the cross, God demonstrates his righteousness by showing that He had not overlooked man's sin, but had simply been preparing a remarkable solution to the problem of man's sin through His own self-sacrifice, His own self-punishment on our behalf.

But not only were all the previously committed sins paid for in full at the cross, there was provided a way of salvation for sinners, a way by which all those sins could be "passed over." Here Paul invokes another great OT picture, this time the picture of the blood of a passover lamb without blemish shed as a means of salvation, so that death would not afflict that house. Thus, not only does the cross fulfill the "shadows" of all the atoning sacrifices in reality, but the cross also fulfills the "shadow" of the Passover in reality. All it took to make the ancient Passover in Egypt apply to that house was faith in God's word and the shed blood of the Lamb. For us today, all it takes to make the Passover at the cross apply to us for salvation is faith in God's Word Jesus Christ and His shed blood as our Lamb without blemish.

Thus, at the Cross, God did two cataclysmic things simultaneously: He punished all the sins of humanity across time, and He provided the ultimate Passover Lamb as a means of salvation from those sins through faith in that Lamb Jesus Christ. Certainly this was THE demonstration of His righteousness, if there ever was one!!

To summarize vs. 25, let's look at it this way: At the cross, ALL of who God is (Love, Holiness, Mercy, Justice) meets ALL of who man is (Unloving, Unholy, Unmerciful, Unjust due to sin, but filled with hope and yearning for something better, a yearning for rightness within and rightness in our relationship with God). This is where the transference of LIFE is to take place: my life for His, my sin for His sacrifice, my unrighteousness for His righteousness infused into me. This is the transaction where we bring nothing but our naked sin and shame and find everything we lack, where our nakedness is clothed forever with the warm and righteous robes of Jesus Christ.

The very fact that God in ALL of who He is meets us in the valley of the shadow of our death from sin tells us everything we need ever know about the heart of our God: He wants us, He is there for us, He is willing to descend to our greatest depths to meet us and lead us out of those depths. The cross is where our God loves us in the most costly and public way at precisely the moment we are at our ugliest in our sin. At the place of greatest contrast between us and God is where He loves us most. This is why Paul's explanation of the cross is set directly beside his conclusion of the total depravity of man in Rom. 3:9-20. Overshadowing our point of greatest personal need and ugliness in sin stands the cross of Jesus Christ, where our sin was paid for and the chance for an eternal pass over is offered to all who believe.

Here is a story about Christ's love through His self-sacrifice on the cross changing the lives of hardened men, from Doug McCullough's book The Trivialization of God. He quotes from Chuck Colson, who tells this story of visiting a prison in the city of Sao Jose dos Campos in Brazil. This prison had been turned over to two Christians some 20 years before, and here is how they ran the prison:

"They called it Humaita, and their plan was to run it on Christian principles. The prison has only two full-time staff; the rest of the work is done by inmates. Every prisoner is assigned another inmate to whom he is accountable. In addition, every prisoner is assigned a volunteer family from the outside that works with him during his term and after his release. Every prisoner joins a chapel program, or else takes a course in character formation.

When I visited Humaita, I found the inmates smiling -- particularly the murderer who held the keys, opened the gates, and let me in. Wherever I walked I saw men at peace. I saw clean living areas, people working industriously. The walls were decorated with biblical sayings from Psalms and Proverbs. Humaita has an astonishing record. Its recidivism rate is 4 percent compared to 75 percent in the rest of Brazil and the United States. How is all this possible?

I saw the answer when my guide escorted me to the notorious punishment cell once used for torture. Today, he told me, that block houses only a single inmate. As we reached the end of a long concrete corridor and he put the key into the lock, he paused and asked, 'Are you sure you want to go in?'

'Of course,' I replied impatiently. 'I've been in isolation cells all over the world.' Slowly he swung open the massive door, and I saw the prisoner in that punishment cell: a crucifix, beautifully carved by the Humaita inmates -- the prisoner Jesus hanging on the cross.

'He's doing time for all the rest of us,' my guide said softly."

In verse 26, Paul describes the baseline reality of the cross: God did it all Himself. Over in Germany, there is a marvelous re-enactment of the crucifixion called the "Passion Play," where a whole village gets into their various roles, creating the costumes, props, etc. It is quite a production, which I hope to see someday. But at the real drama of the cross of Christ, God played two parts in His "Passion Play of the Cross." He is at one and the same time both the Just Judge condemning sin and the suffering Justifier of the one believing in Jesus Christ. Man's only part in God's "Passion Play of the Cross" is to play the audience: we can only watch what God does until the very end, when we are left with a final choice. We can choose to believe in this suffering and loving sacrifice of Jesus Christ and thus be made righteous with His righteousness by faith, or we can continue on in the tragedy of sin and say yet once again, "I Don't Need You."

God Himself stands at both sides of the transaction of the cross. In a very real and awful way, the cross is God the Just killing God the Justifier. Only after His resurrection does He invite us to believe in Him and thus receive the free gift of His righteousness infused into us. Thus, man's role in this transaction at the cross is boiled down exclusively to the role of faith: by faith he believes in the Christ of the cross, and is saved. Perhaps that is why our modern term "Good Friday" was originally "God's Friday:" surely it was His day, because He did it all.

Conclusion: So, What Does the Cross Mean to Me?

So, what does the cross of Christ mean to me? What does it mean in a world where tomorrow morning we wake up for a job search, to face the demanding schedule of the first full week of school, to face another work week with a boss who is never satisfied, to face another week where the job is simply too large to accomplish, to enter another week of sacrificial servanthood which no one sees and it seems no one appreciates? What does the cross mean then?

This whole week as I've been studying, just above my computer screen on the file cabinet in the corner is a gift one of my daughters made for me. She made it in kindergarten. It is a rough wooden cross, made out of blocks of wood of different sizes, shapes and colors. She told me she made it for me because the assignment was to make your father something he would value. She knows how important the cross is to me, so she made me a cross. It was a gift of love from my daughter. And that is what the cross of Christ is: a gift of love from my Father. I was sold into self-centeredness and duped into self-sufficiency, and when I was so lost in sin I could not help myself, He gave Himself to me and for me. Then He gave me His righteousness, infusing it INTO me, that I would be changed forever to be like Him and have a new identity in Him. When you think of the cross, may can know that it was God's gift of love for you. Who loves you out in the business world? Aren't they just out for a pound of your flesh? And who values you for who you are on the inside? He has valued you far more highly than you valued yourseld, far higher than anyone else you will ever meet in this world. He gave all He could give to purchase you. When you need to know you are loved, look to the cross. It is the most powerful love letter ever sent, written in the ink of our God's own red blood.

And it means you are changed on the inside, so changed in that moment when God's righteousness was infused into you that your identity and destiny are forever altered. In fact, over the next few months when we get to Romans 6-8, we will explore just how different we have become in Christ, and what our new identity in Him is all about.

I want to conclude with a chorus that reminds me of the love of my Christ of the cross, the love which Dave shared with those boys when he raced across the ice to save Billy on Mt. Hood. The chorus is familiar: Oh, How He Loves You and Me.

Oh, how He loves you and me!
Oh, how He loves you and me!
He gave His life, what more could He give?
Oh, how He loves you,
Oh how He loves me,
Oh how He loves you and me!

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