just got my MacBook back from the shop
listening to Aaron Keyes Psalm 62
I haven't had my MacBook since last Wednesday. That explains the lack of posts. In the meantime, I have kept up with my studying. That explains the skip in text. I read it and did as I would normally in the previous text. I just didn't write it down. Anyway, on to Romans 3.
Romans 3:21-31
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.Paul had just gotten done talking about the point of the law. He said that the law gives man knowledge of sin. Amen to that. Then he turns a corner by using the word "but."Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
"Now," Paul says, God's righteousness is revealed through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. There is no difference between people, he claims. Sin isn't prejudice. Everyone is a sinner and are not as good as God is.
Verse 24 makes an interesting statement when it says "being justified freely by His grace." It implies that it is a process.
Because Salvation is by grace alone, no one can boast. No Jew nor Gentile. Man is therefore justified by faith apart from works of the law. He is the God of the Gentiles.
A Little Application
Paul was not very well liked among the Jews. They were entitled to God. They are the ones who had the law, and they are the ones who were religious. If anyone claimed that the gospel was for anyone besides them then that person was a heretic. In that right, Paul was a heretic.
In what ways do I say the gospel is not for everyone? That might not necessarily be an outwardly expressed thing, but I probably do it in subtle ways.
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