But Now
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. Romans 3:21
Several Jewish writers whose writings date from around the same time as Paul, wrestled with the question of God’s justice. The whole human race had turned away from God and as a just Judge, He could not let this go on without intervening. But in the midst of, and as a result of human wickedness, many were suffering bitterly. Again, as a just Judge, God must do something.
Another strand to the problem was Israel. The book of Genesis is framed in such a way as to say: God called Abraham (Genesis 12) to undo the problem caused by the sin of Adam (Genesis 3) and so to get God’s original purpose back on track (Genesis 1,2). Faced with a world gone wrong, God made a covenant with Abraham that through his family, the entire problem would be properly addressed. He must be true to that covenant. Otherwise, how will He save the world? The further problem is that Abraham’s family, Israel, have themselves been unfaithful to their calling. The bearers of the solution to the world’s problem have turned out to be part of the problem themselves. If God is going to be faithful to His promises, and to the whole creation, He must deal with both the world and Israel. God can’t do what Israel expects (rescue from their plight despite their guilt) without being charged with partiality.
The problem is not just then one of God’s justice. More than that, it’s a problem of God’s covenant justice. Romans 3:21-26 explains how God has been true to the covenant and how the covenant itself has made a way for humanity to be restored to right relationship with Him. The faithful death of Jesus of Nazareth, Israel’s Messiah, unveils the way in which the one true God has been true to the covenant by providing the answer to a world gone wrong, to humans lost in sin and guilt, and to faithless Israel.
‘But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify’ (3:21). What God has done to reveal His righteousness is both ‘apart from law’ (otherwise only the Jews as the only nation to be given the law would know of it) but it still must be something ‘to which the Law and the Prophets testify’. It must in retrospect be seen to be fulfilling all that God had promised beforehand.
‘But now a righteousness from God … has been made known.’ The ‘but now’ contrasts the situation in the time before Christ, which Paul has described in the previous chapters, with the situation that now exists after His coming. Christ’s coming announces a decisive shift in salvation history. Paul uses the perfect tense meaning the revealing of this righteousness has happened and is completed. He will go on to explain that this has occurred through Christ’s completed death on the cross. The righteous status any human being needs to stand in God’s presence, to be in right standing with Him, comes to us through the finished work of Christ on the cross.
God’s plan of salvation unfolds in stages and the coming of Jesus the Messiah inaugurates a new stage in that plan. Paul elaborates this idea in two contrasting phrases ‘apart from the law’ and ‘to which the Law and the Prophets testify.’
He captures the continuity and discontinuity in God’s plan of salvation. The discontinuity is: God reveals His righteousness in Christ ‘apart from’ the law of Moses. Like the ‘old wineskin’ of Mark 2:22, the Mosaic covenant simply cannot contain the ‘new wine’ of the gospel. The continuity is: the entire Old Testament, ‘the Law and the Prophets’, testifies to this new work of God in Christ. The cross was no afterthought. It had been God’s intention from the beginning to reveal His saving righteousness by sending His Son as a sacrifice for us.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones exclaimed “There are no more wonderful words in the whole of Scripture than just these two words ‘But now.’” As ‘the wrath of God’ dominated the old era (1:18), so ‘the righteousness of God’ dominates the new – the justifying activity of God. From God’s side this includes His intervention to vindicate and deliver His people in fulfilment of His promises. From the human side it includes the status of acquittal required by the person so declared just. In 1:17 says this ‘righteousness of God’ is constantly revealed through the preaching of the gospel.
The moment we believed the gospel, we received the status of ‘righteous.’ The record of our past sin was removed and God declared us righteous with Christ’s righteousness. We no longer belong to the old era but to the new.