The Need for Justification
3: 21-23
The need for justification DIG: What was the purpose of the Levitical sacrifices in the Torah? Why do we no longer need them? How does God’s plan demonstrate fairness to all humanity? What does the TaNaKh say about sinning? Does everyone miss the mark? Can believers miss the mark? If we miss the mark, then what can we do (First John 1:9)?
REFLECT: How do people try to earn their salvation? What is the link between believing and behaving? How does this affect how you act on a daily, hourly, and minute-by-minute basis? When did you first realize salvation was a free gift provided by ADONAI? Does the fact that salvation is apart from works and comes only through faith bother you? Why? Why not?
We all have the need for justification because “All have sinned” at some level, “and come short of earning the glory of God’s praise.”
Job asked the most important question that’s possible to ask: How can man be justified before God (Job 9:2)? Because YHVH is the kind of God He is, Job wondered how a person could ever hope to approach Him, much less become righteous and acceptable before Him. Can a mere human being have a right relationship with a God who is holy, infinite and mighty?74 Paul answers that question here in Romans 3:21-23.
Justification is apart from the Torah: But now, quite apart from Torah. What this phrase means is that God’s righteousness has nothing to do with our obeying the Torah and its 613 mitzvot, but goes back to the underlying truth of obedience by faith. God’s way of making people righteous in His sight has been made clear (3:21a). It is by faith alone, not works. It is unthinkable that YHVH instructed the Jewish people to perfectly obey 613 mitzvot that were impossible to keep, and for which the penalty of violation was death. The God of love does not play cruel games!
It is true that when the Jewish people fell short of keeping the Torah they sinned. But the Torah itself includes a procedure for dealing with sins, provided they were not committed with a high hand, that is, rebellion (see the commentary on Jude, to see link click Aq – They Have Taken the Way of Cain, Rushed into Balaam’s Error, and have been Destroyed by Korah’s Rebellion). The procedure was the Levitical sacrificial system, and in fact the greater part of the Five Books of Moses is devoted to it. The system offered forgiveness to a repentant person who brought the required sacrifice in faith (see the commentary on Hebrews Bu – A Better Sacrifice). Thus, at the time the Messiah died, the Torah provided a framework within which each person might be saved (see the commentary on Hebrew Cj – Faith in Action), provided he trusted ADONAI in everything and in no way relied on his own self-righteousness.75
Dear Heavenly Father, You are perfectly righteous and also perfectly loving. Your wisdom in balancing both is amazing! You planned and set the pattern for sins to be forgiven by the offerings thru which the person’s sin was transferred to the animal that died in the sinner’s place. He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, so that it will be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf (Leviticus 1:4). Since You are perfectly holy, You cannot tolerate any sin, and so He made the One who knew no sin to become a sin offering on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (Second Corinthians 5:21).
Praise Your love that was willing to be the Lamb of God (John 1:29) to die in the place of all. How wonderful Your sacrifice! How sad that many will not receive Your gift of love. They know about You in a mentally approving way, but not in a heart commitment of love to follow You. They think that mere knowledge is enough to save them – but knowledge alone is not enough. Heart-filled love is what You have always desired. As Yeshua puts it: You shall love ADONAI your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment (Matthew 22:37-38). I love you dear Father. In Yeshua’s holy name and power of His resurrection. Amen
It is important to understand that the Torah did not set an impossible standard. Moses declared at Mount Sinai: For this mitzvah that I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you to understand, nor is it beyond your reach. The mitzvah that ADONAI was commanding Bnei Isra’el to follow was not in the heavens, that they should say: Who will go up for us to the heavens and get it for us, and have us hear it so we may do it? Nor is it across the sea, that you should say: Who will cross over for us to the other side of the sea and get it for us, and have us hear it so we may do it? No, the word is very near to you – you can speak it because it is in your mouth and you know it because it is in your heart to do it (Deuteronomy 30:11-14; Romans 10:6-8). Rather, the Torah sets a standard of faith, trusting in God, and of following its system of repentance and sacrifice for obtaining forgiveness from YHVH and restoring a condition of being considered righteous in His sight.
Justification is built on revelation: Although the Torah and the Prophets give their witness to it as well (3:21b). Throughout the Torah, ADONAI’s holiness and moral integrity are proclaimed, as also is the truth that humans cannot attain God’s standard of righteousness by striving for it. As Isaiah 64:5 puts it: All our righteousness, those whose we achieve by mere human effort without genuine reliance on and trust in YHVH are filthy rags.
Moreover, not only do the Scriptures attest to God’s way of making people righteous, but non-Messianic Judaism is aware of it also. The eleventh-century Midrash to Psalm 44:1 says, “When the children of Isra’el went out from Egypt, they could not offer any works of their hands whereby they might be redeemed. And so, it was not because of the works of their fathers, nor was it because of their own works, that the sea was divided before them; rather, it was only so that God might make a name for Himself in the world.”
The Siddur, the Jewish prayer book, quotes Dani’el 9:18 in the preliminary morning prayers, “Sovereign of all worlds! Not because of our righteous acts do we lay our supplications before You, but because of Your abundant mercies.” And then continues by describing this verse in the spirit of Ecclesiastes, “What are we? What is our life? What is our piety? Our righteousness? Our helpfulness? Our strength? Our might? What shall we say before you, ADONAI, our God and God of our fathers? Are not all the mighty men as nothing before you, the men of fame as though they had never existed, the wise as if without knowledge, and those with understanding as if without discernment? For most of their works are void, and the days of their lives are vanity before You, and the preeminence of man over beast is nothing for all is vanity.”
So, like Paul, even the rabbis have recognized human inability to meet God’s standard for righteousness, even with the guidance of the Torah that YHVH gave.76
Justification is acquired by faith: And it is an imputed righteousness that comes from God. Imputation means to reckon or charge to another’s account. Therefore, all of Messiah’s righteousness is transferred to your spiritual bank account at the moment of faith (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Bw – What God Does for Us at the Moment of Faith). At that time, what is true of Messiah is true of you, minus His deity. The result is positional righteousness; in other words, you are justified. This imputed righteousness is obtained through the faithfulness of Yeshua the Messiah (3:22a).
But the faithfulness in Yeshua Messiah that the B’rit Chadashah teaches is much more than a simple affirmation of certain truths about Him. Even the demons acknowledge many facts about Him. One of the demons who possessed a man in Gerasenes’ territory, seeing Yeshua from a distance, ran and fell on his knees in front of Him and screamed at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Yeshua, Son of God Ha’Elyon (Mark 5:6-7)? The demon who gave the slave girl the power of divination followed behind Sha’ul and the rest of his friends and kept screaming, “These men are servants of God Ha’Elyon. They are telling you how to be saved” (Acts 16:17)! Therefore, saving faith is placing oneself totally in submission to the Lord Yeshua Messiah, and it has certain essential elements that the B’rit Chadashah clearly teaches.
Saving faith in Yeshua Messiah involves the exercise of the will. Paul told the believers in Rome: By God’s grace, you, who were once slaves to sin, obeyed from your heart the pattern of teaching to which you were exposed (6:17). From a human standpoint, salvation begins with a person’s willful obedience in turning from sin to follow the Lord Yeshua Messiah.
Saving faith in Yeshua Messiah involves the emotions, because, as in the verse just mentioned above, it must come from the heart as well as from the mind. On the one hand, a person cannot be saved by good feelings about Messiah, and many people throughout the ages and in our own day have substituted good feelings about Yeshua for saving faith through Him. But on the other hand, a person whose life is transformed by Messiah will be affected by his emotions in the deepest possible way.
Saving faith in Yeshua Messiah involves the intellect. No one can think his way into the Kingdom of God, but neither can he receive Yeshua Messiah as Lord and Savior without some comprehension of the truth of the gospel. So, trust comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through a word proclaimed about the Messiah (10:17).
Justification is provided for all: The provision of salvation and the justification it brings is granted to all who continue trusting. Anyone will be saved who believes in Yeshua Messiah as Lord and Savior. For it makes no difference whether one is a Jew or a Gentile (3:22b). For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two, one, and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility (see the commentary on Acts Cn – Paul’s Advice from Jacob and the Elders at Jerusalem). Just as everyone apart from Messiah is equally sinful and rejected by YHVH, everyone who is in Messiah is equally justified and accepted by Him.77
There is no distinction among those who are saved, because there is no distinction among those who are lost, since all have sinned (the Greek word hamartano corresponds to the Hebrew word chet, meaning missing the mark, like an archer who shoots off-target) at some level, and come short of earning the glory of God’s praise (3:23). The Greek phrase, have sinned is constative aorist, presenting a panoramic view of the human race as doing nothing except committing sin. In Judaism, the Yetzer Hara (or evil inclination) can be loosely correlated to this concept of the sin nature or old self. This principle, that everyone is a sinner, is taught in the TaNaKh.
This is the start of the Romans Road to salvation: This is a way of explaining the Good News of salvation using verses from the book of Romans. It is a simple yet powerful method of explaining why we need salvation, how God provided salvation, how we can receive salvation, and what are the results of salvation. We start by saying: For all have sinned and come short of earning the glory of God’s praise (3:23).
That includes you and me, doesn’t it? Most people feel that being good gets you into heaven and being bad keeps you out. That simply is not true; for all have sinned. What would you say sin is? I think we can agree that we are both sinners; now let’s define sin. Some have said, “I’m not perfect,” or “I have made some mistakes.” But what do you think the Bible means by sin? Well, the Bible says that everyone who keeps sinning is violating Torah . . . indeed, sin is violation of Torah (First John 3:4). Have you ever disobeyed your parents? Have you ever misused the name of God? Have you ever told a lie? This is what sin is. It’s breaking God’s Torah.
There is no one who doesn’t sin (First Kings 8:46a).
For there isn’t a righteous person on earth who does [only] good and never sins (Ecclesiastes 7:20).
ADONAI’s arm is not too short to save, nor is His ear too dull to hear. Rather, it is your own crimes that separate you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you , so that He doesn’t come near (Isaiah 59:1-2).
All of us are like someone unclean, all our righteous deeds are like menstrual rags (Isaiah 64:5a).78 This applies equally to pagans who have never heard anything of God (see Ak – The Pagan Gentile), to good, moral people (see Ao – The “Good” Person), and to the religious Jew (see At – The Religious Jew).
The question of why this is true, and how it comes about, that everyone sins (in other words, original sin) is discussed by Paul later in his letter (see Bm – The Consequences of Adam). But the truth of this verse, which epitomizes Bad News (see Aj – The Universal Need of Mankind), is basic to understanding the sinful nature of mankind, and the Good News that God offers the only solution to the problem through the faithfulness of Yeshua the Messiah.
Ponder the achievement of ADONAI. He doesn’t condone our sin, nor does He compromise His standard. He doesn’t ignore our rebellion, nor does He relax His demands. Rather than dismiss our sin, He assumes our sin and, incredibly, sentences Himself. God’s holiness is honored. Our sin is punished. And we are justified in His sight. YHVH is still YHVH. The wages of sin is still death (6:23). And we are made perfect.79
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