Justified by Faith – Romans 3:27-31
Romans 3:27-31
Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.
Welcome back! There are two points here I believe that are being presented to us.
The first, is that ‘boasting is excluded’. We cannot boast of our salvation, because it is not of us. It is not of works, or of the law, or of any actions taken on our part – it is wholly through faith and the grace of God that we are saved, nothing else. Remember this – it is not of anything that we do. Some religions (and even those that call themselves Christians) say ‘you must do this’ and ‘you must do that to be saved’. NO. It is purely and simply our faith in Jesus Christ. Our salvation is a free gift given to us by the Grace of God. I believe this is perfectly explained in Ephesians 2:4-10 – so it is quoted here as I certainly can’t put it any clearer!
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
(Bold is mine)
Also, do not confuse ‘works’ for salvation with ‘works’ for obedience – you can read more about that in James, but just to clarify – you are not saved through any works – but you may well ‘produce works’ as evidence of your salvation. But that is another huge topic for another day!
Secondly, Paul is about to embark on a large section on faith – and the faith exhibited by those in the past that are recorded in the old testament. So I guess it is time we quickly put a definition around faith! A great read on Faith can be found in Hebrews 11, but here is Hebrews 11:1 to start us off -
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen
Now, here are three definitions of faith from dictionary.com -
- Confidence or trust in a person or thing
- Belief that is not based on proof
- (specifically relating to Christian Theology) the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.
Now that we have gone there – what is faith? Faith is our belief in God – despite the fact we have not seen ‘Him’ personally – belief that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, despite the fact that we weren’t there. There is tons of evidence that God exists, and that Jesus did that work on the cross – but we have not directly seen God, nor were we there 2000 years ago to witness the work on the cross.
That is Faith. Belief and trust in God. And to finish it off, let’s take a quick look at what Jesus said after his resurrection, when Thomas (nicknamed ‘doubting Thomas’) finally saw him with his own eyes -
Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)
Lord God, thank you again for the work you did on the cross for us, that through your grace we would be free of our sins without cost. Again teach us to believe in you – to have faith all of the time, to know what you have done is true and act upon it. Teach us the right way to see you and how to respond. In Jesus name. Amen.