The Cross: The Vindication of God

Romans 3:21-26

How is it that God will once and for all deal with the sins of His people? D. M. Lloyd-Jones in a small booklet with the same title as this article states, “God at one and the same time remains just and can justify the ungodly that believe in Christ. That was the tremendous problem – how can God remain holy and just, and deal with sin as He says He is going to, and yet forgive the sinner?” The apostle Paul gives us an answer in Romans 3:21-26. It is through the cross that God will display His righteousness. “He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The apostle Paul says, “God presented Him as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His restraint God passed over sins previously committed” (Romans 3:25). In actuality, God overlooked the sins of many which included our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Though He overlooked their sins for a time, punishment for those sins still needed to be dealt. God cannot be holy and just by forgiving a sinner and not deal with their sins.

A sinner is guilty of death and “Won’t the Judge of all the earth do what is just” (Genesis 18:25)? Therefore, it is through the humiliation of the cross that the Judge of the earth would pour out His wrath upon sin “so that He would be righteous and declare righteous the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). Christ took upon Himself the wrath that was due us. What was done at the cross echoes the promise foretold by the prophet Jeremiah: “For I will forgive their wrong doing and never again remember their sin” (Jeremiah 31:34).

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