Romans Chapter 3

ALL HAVE SINNED AND
FORGIVENESS COMES ONLY THROUGH CHRIST

We will begin by reading Romans 3:1-20 NLT:

1 Then what’s the advantage of being a Jew? Is there any value in the Jewish ceremony of circumcision?
2 Yes, being a Jew has many advantages. First of all, the Jews were entrusted with the whole revelation of God.
3 True, some of them were unfaithful; but just because they broke their promises, does that mean God will break his promises?
4 Of course not! Though everyone else in the world is a liar, God is true. As the Scriptures say, “He will be proved right in what he says, and he will win his case in court.”
5 “But,” some say, “our sins serve a good purpose, for people will see God’s goodness when he declares us sinners to be innocent. Isn’t it unfair, then, for God to punish us?” (That is actually the way some people talk.)
6 Of course not! If God is not just, how is he qualified to judge the world?
7 “But,” some might still argue, “how can God judge and condemn me as a sinner if my dishonesty highlights his truthfulness and brings him more glory?”
8 If you follow that kind of thinking, however, you might as well say that the more we sin the better it is! Those who say such things deserve to be condemned, yet some slander me by saying this is what I preach!

13 “Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave. Their speech is filled with lies.” “The poison of a deadly snake drips from their lips.”
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “They are quick to commit murder.
16 Wherever they go, destruction and misery follow them.
17 They do not know what true peace is.”
18 “They have no fear of God to restrain them.”
19 Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses and to bring the entire world into judgment before God.

We do not believe there are a whole lot of people that understand the connection between the Jews and the Christians, and I believe as we begin chapter 3 this would be a good time to do a little historical background research so that we can better understand what is going on throughout the book of Romans. The first verse of chapter three asks what advantage, if any, there is to being a Jew. If you look at the picture historically and trace the story of the Jew, you might conclude there was little or no advantage. Theirs is a sad struggle of war, captivity, and death. They have been hated, persecuted, slandered, imprisoned, and slaughtered throughout time. Yet they live on, almost defiantly, as an indestructible seed. Today they have re-established their small piece of land in the center of the world.

But looking at the history of the Jews there appears to have been little advantage in being Jewish. They were slaves in Egypt for 400 years under the bondage of Pharaoh. When God freed them from Egypt they wandered in the desert for 40 years until an entire generation died. When they finally entered the land of Canaan (later known as Israel) in 1406 B.C, they had to fight war after war with the surrounding people who constantly attacked them.

The Northern Kingdom was slaughtered and taken captive by the Assyrians in 722 B.C, and then the Babylonians did the same thing to the Southern Kingdom between 605 and 586 B.C. The Northern Kingdom never returned from the Assyrian captivity, and it was 70 years before a remnant from the Southern Kingdom began to trickle back from the Babylonian captivity. It was this remnant that began to rebuild their land from the rubble. They were mocked, harassed, hindered, and unaided in their efforts.

By 175 B.C. they were under the Greek rule of Antiochus Epiphanes, who took liberties in desecrating their religion, priesthood, and holy place. He put down their rebellions by slaughtering many of them. Just after the birth of Christ, many of their babies were massacred by King Herod. Their land was oppressed by Roman legions. In A.D. 70, the city of Jerusalem was destroyed by the great general of the Roman army, Titus. According to the secular historian, Josephus, 1,100,000 Jews were murdered and slaughtered. Of the dead, more than 100,000 bodies were tossed over the city wall in some kind of demented sporting event. In the actual siege of the city there was devastation beyond description, including the destruction of their glorious Temple. About 100,000 remaining fugitives were forced into slavery.

Over the years an undisclosed number of Jews died in the gladiator games that were held in the Roman Coliseum. In A.D. 115, the Jews living in Egypt, Cyprus, and Mesopotamia rose up against Rome. They were badly defeated and the emperor, Hadrian, destroyed 985 towns in Palestine and killed 600,000 men. Many more died from starvation, disease, and being burned at the stake. There were so many of them on the open slave market that the price for one Jew was no more than that of a horse.

The legal code established by the Roman emperor, Theodosius, around A.D. 300, contained ideas of Jewish inferiority. These ideas permeated all of western society and western law in the centuries to follow. For two centuries they were oppressed by the Byzantines. Periclitus banished them from Jerusalem in A.D. 628 and attempted to exterminate the entire race. In A.D. 723, they were given the choice between Christianity and banishment.

When the first crusade was launched in 1096, to recapture the holy places from the Ottoman Turks, the crusaders entered a Jewish settlement and trampled 3,000 Jews to death under their horses’ hooves, and they did it in the name of Christianity. In 1254, Louis IX banished the Jews from France. During the scourge of the Black Death during the years 1348 and 1349, the charge was made that the Black Death in Europe was caused by the Jews poisoning the wells. They attempted to slaughter all the Jews, who were then forced to flee to Poland and to Russia.

In 1492, the Jews were expelled from Spain as Columbus was heading to discover America. In 1496, they were expelled from Portugal. Soon after that, all of Western Europe was closed to them except a few spots in Northern Italy and Germany. Toward the middle of the seventeenth century more persecution broke out in Poland. There was a massacre of Jews in the Ukraine in the early 1800’s. In the nineteenth century a Jewish officer in the French army by the name of Dreyfus was accused of treason. That began an attempt to oust the Jews from the ranks of officers in the French army.

Their only hope for preservation was through what they referred to as Zionism, which can be defined as a plan of the Jewish people to return from all parts of the world to establish a national homeland in Palestine. The Jewish people rallied behind the Zionism movement. The first little colony of Zionists returned to Palestine in about 1873, and they held their first Zionist Congress in 1897. By 1914, there were 90,000 Jews in Palestine.

It all came to a horrifying climax in the 1930’s and 1940’s when 6,000,000 Jews were systematically exterminated. Anti-Semitism has been deeply ingrained in the history of the world and we are sorry to report, it still is flourishing today. Jewish people often find themselves hated, slandered, misunderstood, and mocked.

Finally in 1948, the United Nations granted the Jews the piece of land they call Israel. But ever since the establishment of the nation, the surrounding neighbors have attempted and continue to attempt to drive them out. The Jewish people have not had an easy time of it for almost 4,000 years.

Having now set the stage for an understanding of the Jewish people, we will set our sites on developing an understanding that God expects all of His creation to function as one people; one for all, and all for one. There should be no prejudice, no hatred, and no fighting.

You might be sitting there saying to yourself, “Interesting history, but what does it have to do with me?” Bear with us for just a little while and you will begin to understand. In one respect the answer to the question that appears in the first verse in chapter 3 was found, if you will recall, back in chapter 2, verse 11: “For there is no partiality with God.” So the Jew who reads chapter 2 is going to say: “Paul, if being a descendant of Abraham, possessing the Law of God, and being circumcised does not secure me with God, then what’s the advantage of being Jewish?” They would then probably tell Paul that they did not buy his message. In fact, they may well have told him he did not know what he was talking about. They felt without a doubt that they had a special relationship with God because they were Jewish and had been chosen as God’s people. You may remember we learned that God did choose Israel for a special purpose, but it was not so that they might have special privileges over those who were not Jewish, it was to teach the rest of the world about the truth of the one and only God. The Jews allowed this mission they were selected to accomplish to go to their heads.

Throughout Scripture we see that the people of Israel were given tremendous opportunities to serve God, but they never lived up to the expectations God had for them. So they lost the blessings. They are little different from the people in churches all over our country today. They too have great opportunities to serve God and thus receive His blessings, but they never commit their hearts to Jesus Christ. Tragically, they waste these wonderful opportunities to serve God. It might be that they are simply not saved even though they belong to the church and call themselves Christians. It might also be that they have listened to the culture around them for so long, they have placed God further down on their priority list and do not bother to read their Bibles or pray daily. The churches that dot the landscape of almost every community in the United States are for the most part not functioning as Jesus taught they should function. They have replaced the Bible with human opinion, and pastors rarely have the courage to tell the members of the congregation what they need to hear. That will not be a problem here at Village Church.

In Romans 3:2 Paul tells them that the advantage of being a Jew is “great in every respect.”

Yes, being a Jew has many advantages. First of all, the Jews were entrusted with the whole revelation of God.  (NLT)

True, some of them were unfaithful; but just because they broke their promises, does that mean God will break his promises?

This verse is simply saying that although the Jews, the Israelites, broke the promises they made to God to obey God’s Law, God will in no way break the promises He made to them in the books of the Old Testament in the Bible. God promised that He would deal with the sin of the world by sending a Savior that would provide forgiveness for all humankind. God did that and He will keep every single promise that He made in the Bible. The mistake the Jews made was in thinking that no matter what they did or how they behaved, God would continue pouring out blessings on them because the Jews were His special people. God’s promises were made to all the people of all time, not just the Jews. They were, however, given the privilege of being teachers of God‘s Word.

Romans 3:4 NLT:
Of course not! Though everyone else in the world is a liar, God is true. As the Scriptures say, “He will be proved right in what he says, and he will win his case in court.”

Verse 4 is telling us there is no way that God will ever break a promise.

Romans 3:5-6 NLT:

“But,” some say, “our sins serve a good purpose, for people will see God’s goodness when he declares us sinners to be innocent. Isn’t it unfair, then, for God to punish us?” (That is actually the way some people talk.)
Of course not! If God is not just, how is he qualified to judge the world?

Although it almost seems too ridiculous, as Paul says, this is the way some people think, and I would add that it is what some people hope. here is how this foolishness breaks down. Some people feel that if God is glorified by forgiving the sins of undeserving people, then people who sin are actually doing God a favor because they allow God to display His righteousness. What a bunch of opportunists. The fact is that in the first place God does not need their sin in order for Him to be glorified, and in the second place,

Another fact about sin is that it does not really bring a person happiness. For a while, it may bring them a thrill or a sense of pleasure, but over time that feeling will turn to pain, regret, and self-loathing. If you are young, you may very well think I am just out of touch with what it means to have a good time. But let me tell you this: I had more than my share of that kind of good time and I would give anything to have never gone there. If you are over fifty, you might be a little more inclined to believe what I am saying. And if you are over eighty, you are probably saying, “If the young would only benefit from our mistakes!” And you know what? It goes on that way generation after generation and young people simply seem to thrive on the thrill of walking on the edge, whether it be drugs or alcohol, fast cars, sex, or you fill in the blank.

 7 For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?
8 And why not say, “Let us do evil that good may come”?—as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just.

This is simply a continuation of the argument we just discussed about doing evil so that God might be glorified. “After all, glorifying God is a good thing, isn’t it? So by committing sin, am I not glorifying God?” They seem to really want to cling to this concept. Paul’s twenty-first century answer to them might go something like this:

“My dear misguided friends, do you not see the irrationality in your thinking? You cannot glorify the name of God by sinning because God’s every word speaks of being good, righteous, holy, pure, and filled with joy and peace. You are dishonoring God by sinning because you are living, as well as causing others to join you, in sin. You are being deceived by Satan and I hope you will pray that God will help you see the truth. I will pray for you as well.”

Romans 3:9 NKJV:
What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks (non-Jews)[fn] that they are all under sin.

10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;
11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.
12 They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit; “the poison of asps is under their lips;
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways;
17 And the way of peace they have not known.”
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

People like to think that they are good. In fact, they have pretty much convinced themselves that they are good, or at least okay. But down deep inside people really have a problem convincing themselves of their goodness, and the problem is guilt. People are inevitably and invariably guilty about something. Ann Landers wrote a very interesting paragraph on the subject some years ago. She writes:

“One of the most painful, self-mutilating, time and energy consuming exercises in the human experience is guilt. It can ruin your day or your week, or your life if you let it. It turns up when you do something dishonest, hurtful, selfish, rotten, or tacky. Never mind that it was the result of ignorance, stupidity, laziness, thoughtlessness, weak flesh, or clay feet. You did something wrong and the guilt is killing you. Too bad. But be assured that the agony you feel is normal. Remember, guilt is a pollutant and we don’t need any more of it in the world.”

Guilt drives people to alcohol, drugs, loneliness, insanity, and even suicide. When people play games with their minds and try to pass their guilt off onto somebody else, it only increases their guilt. they are now not only guilty for what they did but for blaming someone else for it. They would do anything to be able to get rid of it, but they do not know how.

I heard a story some years ago regarding the Internal Revenue Service. They once received a check for $50 along with a letter from a man who wrote this: “I am sending you this check because I cannot sleep at night because I was dishonest with my income tax. If I can sleep after sending this, okay; If I cannot, I’ll send you the balance.”

Seneca, the Roman philosopher and statesman said that every guilty person is his own hangman. Humankind cannot relieve itself of guilt in an effective way. The reason for that is that people have real sin and real sin has the effect of guilt. The recognition of the sin of humankind is the first great issue in the Gospel of Jesus. The Church is in the world, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say should be in the world, to let people know that they are sinful; to tell them that their guilt is justified. They have in fact sinned against a holy God and they are responsible. All the world is guilty before God. The world, however finds it very difficult to admit this. Dr. Barnhouse wrote:

“It is only stubborn self-pride that keeps people from a confession to God that would bring release. But they refuse to go that way. People stand before their God today like a little boy who swears in tears that he has not been anywhere near the jar of jam, and with an air of outraged innocence, pleads the justice of his position in total ignorance of the fact that a good spoonful of jam has fallen on his shirt, under his chin, and is plainly visible to all but himself.”

In Romans 3:10-18 we are seeing how God views people. God is telling people that they are lost. All of us are lost and none of us is any better than others.

I read an article a few years back about a duck by the name of “Ringo” who lived in a pond in Grenadier Park in Toronto. People were always throwing pop cans in the park as well as into the pond. Ringo was trying to stick his beak into a pop can and he got the pull tab stuck around his beak. This was when they had the large ring pull tabs on pop cans. He could not get it off and he could not open his mouth. Mrs. Ringo was rather pleased with this state of affairs and did not do anything to help Ringo get it off.

I simply could not resist adding that. But in all seriousness it was impossible for Ringo to eat in this condition and it soon became the project of the people of Toronto to try to help poor Ringo. People tried everything they could think of to catch that duck. But they just could not catch him. Ringo did not know people were trying to help him and that he was starving to death. People actually went so far as to get a canon that shot a net over the whole pond. Ringo got away. Then a skin diver was hired to swim around the pond and sneak up on Ringo and grab him. But, Ringo knew what size ducks were. Then bread and corn were used to lure him. All that did was to draw hundreds of sea gulls.

Finally Canada’s champion duck caller tried his luck and he got the attention of every duck in the pond except Ringo. Ringo could not be caught and was never helped. He just did not understand that all those attempts were not designed to frighten him, but to free him from his problem. People are the same. They are hopelessly blinded to the truth about God, but they do not know that, and when you approach them with the truth about God, they think you are trying to take something away from them, that you are trying to make things impossible for them, when all you want to do is take the ring off their beaks to save their lives for eternity.[fn]

Romans 3:10,11 NLT:
10 As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous— not even one.
11 No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God.

You might look at verse 11 and say, “This simply isn’t true. What about the people who believe in God and believe the Bible?” Listen to what the apostle John writes in John 6:44 NLT:

People do not seek God. People who are truly seeking God are not doing it on their own initiative. They are doing it because God has begun to draw them, and one of the ways He draws them is through the message He delivers in the Bible. I believe verse 12 is fairly self-explanatory as is verse 13 NKJV:

12 They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.”
13 “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”;

But we might expand on these verses by connecting them to a few other Bible passages. The first is Matthew 12:33-37 NLT:

“A tree is identified by its fruit. Make a tree good, and its fruit will be good. Make a tree bad, and its fruit will be bad.
34 You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say.

36 And I tell you this, that you must give an account on judgment day of every idle word you speak.
37 The words you say now reflect your fate then; either you will be justified by them or you will be condemned.”

Matthew 15:18, 19 NLT:
But evil words come from an evil heart and defile the person who says them.
19 For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all other sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander.

1 Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged by God with greater strictness.
2 We all make many mistakes, but those who control their tongues can also control themselves in every other way.
3 We can make a large horse turn around and go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth.
4 And a tiny rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot wants it to go, even though the winds are strong.
5 So also, the tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do. A tiny spark can set a great forest on fire.
6 And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is full of wickedness that can ruin your whole life. It can turn the entire course of your life into a blazing flame of destruction, for it is set on fire by hell itself.
7 People can tame all kinds of animals and birds and reptiles and fish,
8 but no one can tame the tongue. It is an uncontrollable evil, full of deadly poison.
9 Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it breaks out into curses against those who have been made in the image of God.
10 And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right!

All you have to do is listen to what people say in order to determine if they are corrupt. All you have to do is turn on your television, radio, computer, go to a movie, or just listen to the conversation of friends and associates. People are not honest. They say whatever is necessary to get the things they want. Just listen to any commercial on radio or television. What do you think the purpose of a commercial is? Most often it is to get you to believe what they are saying and buy something you probably do not need. People may say things to you that are flattering and convincing, but then they pull the rug out from underneath you.

You have all heard someone at one time or another say that people are basically good. Well, they are not, and I am not talking only about the people outside of this room. I am talking about all of us, and every once in a while we see that in ourselves, do we not? Simply put, that is the reason we all need a Savior.

Now Romans 3:14 says “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” To “curse” someone means to speak evil of them, and that is quite common in our world. “Bitterness” means to be resentful, saying things that will hurt a person because they have hurt you. These are words of hate and anger. All you have to do is stop for a moment and listen to what people are saying. They are using words of bitterness and anger that curse others. They use filthy language, they blaspheme God, they express pride in who they are or what they have done, they express their lusts for personal pleasure, they lie, and they are deceitful. The destruction that is produced by the tongue throughout the world is the reason that that there is so much hurt and hatred and anger, the latter two being the result of hurt. When someone hurts you, what happens? I would say that most people get angry when they are hurt and that often leads to their feeling hate for the person that made them angry and hurt them.

In verse 17 Paul tells them that if there is one thing that the world never has, it is peace. There is no peace for the wicked, there is only violence and devastation and destruction. Yet people keep talking about peace and the day when all this fighting will end. Well, this side of the return of Jesus, it is never going to end because of the basic nature of people. I once heard someone define peace as “the time everybody stops firing in order to reload.”

What makes people this way? Sin makes people this way as verse 18 describes: “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” The reason so many people abandon themselves to a sinful lifestyle is that they do not fear God. Fearing God has both a positive and negative element, and you have to understand both or you will not understand this verse. Fearing God on the positive side means to worship and be in awe of Him. Fear of God on the negative side means to be afraid of Him.

You will never even begin to be wise unless you fear God. Proverbs 16:6 says:

6 Unfailing love and faithfulness make atonement for sin. By fearing the Lord, people avoid evil. (NLT)

People need to accept God as God. They need to worship and obey Him, and yes, fear the consequences of disobedience. God intended to put a healthy fear into people. We then see the nature of the verdict given in Romans 3:19 (NRSV):

Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

What exactly does that mean? No one has any defense. There is nothing that can be said in one’s own defense. All the world stands guilty before God, and just to confirm that Paul throws in verse 20 NLT:

20 For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.

Romans 3:21-31 NLT:
21 But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight—not by obeying the law (which no one can do completely) but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago.

23 For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
24 Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins.
25 For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. God was being entirely fair and just when he did not punish those who sinned in former times.
26 And he is entirely fair and just in this present time when he declares sinners to be right in his sight because they believe in Jesus.
27 Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on our good deeds. It is based on our faith.
28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.
29 After all, God is not the God of the Jews only, is he? Isn’t he also the God of the Gentiles? Of course he is.
30 There is only one God, and there is only one way of being accepted by him. He makes people right with himself only by faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles.

We consider ourselves to be very passionate about our relationship with Jesus Christ. One of the reasons for that passion is that God showed His love and grace to an atheist who showed nothing but contempt for Him. God brought me to a point in life where I fell to my knees in a state of utter despair and spoke those seven little words: “God, if you’re there, please help me.” Before long I found myself reading the Bible for the first time in my life and attending a Bible believing church where a number of people helped me better understand the scriptures. It took almost two years from that night on my knees, but I came to understand what it meant when the Bible says that salvation and eternal life come through faith in Jesus. I accepted Christ as my personal Savior and it remains the most important decision I ever made. The blessings have continued to come and although it has not been an easy ride, peace and hope are present in abundance.

Considering that history, you may better understand my passion for this relationship. That is why it breaks my heart to visit churches where you never hear the truth of this message taught. It also angers me that this message has been diluted and even changed in most churches today, to the point where the truth is no longer recognizable. The church teaches this fabricated, fictionalized message as if it were the truth, misleading many to believe they are okay with God when they are not. Romans 3:21-31 states the message of salvation as simply and as clearly as it can be presented. If you understand it, believe it, and make it a part of your own life, you will be saved and have eternal life in Heaven after you die. If you do not, your eternity will be spent in that place the Bible refers to as Hell. And if you are one of those who do not believe that, we can show you over and over again where the Bible verifies it.

I am reminded of another story I heard about a guy who was on a business trip. He was riding in a car with an associate and they passed by a liquor store. The man who was visiting the city said to his associate, “that is a funny name for a liquor store.” The other man agreed and said, “Yes, that is a funny name for a liquor store and there’s a whole chain of them here in the city. In fact,  a guy in my Sunday school class owns them all.”

“That is interesting,” the other man said, “Does he attend often?” “Almost every Sunday,” his friend replied, “and often we meet together and he tries to help me in my spiritual growth.” The visitor then just could not help asking, “I don’t quite understand. If he attends church and Bible study regularly and coaches others in their Christian walk, what in the world is he doing owning a chain of liquor stores?” “Oh, that is just the business he is in,” his friend replied, “and right now he is going through a very difficult time personally. he is left his wife and is living with a twenty-two year old girl while waiting for a divorce. he is been living with her for about a year.”

His visitor then asked if this man had tried to reconcile with his wife in an attempt to save the marriage. “Oh no,” was the reply, “he’ll never go back to his wife. He truly believes this is the woman for him, so he has no intention of going back to his wife and children. You know, come to think of it, it is really hard for me to believe that a Christian would live like that.” To which his visitor replied, “Did it ever enter your mind that maybe he is not a Christian? The reply came back, “Oh no, I remember the day that he asked Jesus Christ into his life.”

                                    How To Receive Salvation and Eternal Life

Just asking Jesus Christ into your life is not what it takes to be saved. In order to be saved a person must believe in their heart that they are a sinner in need of a Savior and that Jesus is the only One that can save them because He was the only One who could keep God’s entire Law for a lifetime, and was willing to be the perfect sacrifice for the sin of all humankind by dying on the cross. And when one has that kind of faith, God sees them as joined to Christ and therefore righteous, which makes them keepers of God’s Law as well, and it is in that relationship that their sin is forgiven and no longer seen by God. God sees them as sinless and perfect law keepers in the same way as Christ is seen by God.            

People ask Christ into their lives all the time. They ask Christ to come into their lives in the emotional moments of an evangelistic crusade because it seems the right thing to do to possibly get them out of the misery they are feeling. They may ask Jesus to come into their lives when they are going through a business reversal, a divorce, or a serious illness. People ask Jesus into their lives all the time when they think no one else can help them to get what they want. When, however, the crisis is over, they forget all about Jesus because all along they were only thinking of themselves.

A person can be declared righteous by God without keeping the Law themselves, and this applies to all people, not just a select few. Paul tells us that because of Jesus’ faithfulness in keeping the Law perfectly, God’s promise to the Israelites, to deal once and for all with the sin of the world, would finally be accomplished. God has dealt with sin through the cross of Jesus. He has vindicated Jesus, declaring Him righteous, by raising Him from the dead. The faithfulness of Jesus, the obedience of Jesus, is the means by which the righteousness of God can be revealed, and by which God can declare us righteous as well.

There are a few verses we need to read as being complimentary to Romans 3:21-31. The first would be Ephesians 2:4-10 NLT:

4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so very much,
5 that even while we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s special favor that you have been saved!)

7 And so God can always point to us as examples of the incredible wealth of his favor and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us through Christ Jesus.
8 God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you cannot take credit for this; it is a gift from God.
9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT:
What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!

Colossians 1:18-23 NLT:
Christ is the head of the church, which is his body. He is the first of all who will rise from the dead, so he is first in everything.
19 For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ,
20 and by him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of his blood on the cross.
21 This includes you who were once so far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions,
22 yet now he has brought you back as his friends. He has done this through his death on the cross in his own human body. As a result, he has brought you into the very presence of God, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.
23 But you must continue to believe this truth and stand in it firmly. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed by God to proclaim it.

If there is no evidence of a pattern of righteous living within a person, the chances are that the person never truly accepted Christ as Savior. If someone bails out of the faith, then you know they were never truly redeemed. Godly behavior and holy activity is the evidence of genuine salvation. In fact if you read1 John, that is all that you can conclude. 1 John says that if you do not love your brother or sister, it does not matter what you say, you are not saved. In chapter 3, John goes on to say that if you go on continually living in sin, it does not matter what you claim, you are not saved. You are a child of the devil, not the child of God.

So beginning in Romans 3:21, Paul gives us the way to get right with God. Through our study of the first three chapters of Romans we have learned that people cannot get right with God as a result of their own efforts. This is particularly uncomfortable for religious people who like to think they can get right with God on their own terms by some kind of spiritual activity.

The Jews were like that. They believed they could get right with God by meticulous attention to keeping the Law. But the fact was that they could not obey the Law. People then ask what the Law of God is for if you can not keep it. The answer is very simple.

Having affirmed that righteousness cannot be achieved by our own efforts, we also see that righteousness has been built on the revealed Word of God from the Old Testament. It has been witnessed to by the Law and the prophets as told  in Romans 3:21. Paul is saying here that this is the same message that was revealed to the people through the Old Testament before the coming of Christ

Let us close chapter 3 with a reading from chapter 10, verses 9 and 10:

That is what salvation is. It is the affirmation of the sovereignty of God in your life through the mediator, Jesus Christ.