Redemption 2 - Romans 3:21-31

There is a phrase in verse 22 that is interesting. It seems to me like verse 21 is saying something to the effect of “the scriptures tell us that God is also righteous outside of the law.” What does that mean? The NLT quotes verse 21 as, “But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago.” That doesn’t seem right to me because it makes it sound like God will redeem us even if we don’t even try to keep the commandments, which we know is not true.

But if we look at it another way, we might take it as saying that God has shown us a way to be made right with him even if we aren’t perfect at keeping the commandments, which is true. This “way” that God shows us is the interesting phrase from verse 22 which describes the way as “the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.”
This is a tough phrase to sort out, but the IM does a good job of it, saying, “it can mean that we receive salvation ‘by our faith in Jesus Christ’ or ‘by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.’ The later meaning teaches that because of the Savior’s faithfulness in suffering and dying in atonement for our sins, we can place our faith in Him and receive salvation. Both our faith in Jesus Christ and His faithfulness in atoning for us are essential elements of our salvation.” I would also like to say that Christ’s faithfulness is also in keeping his promise to us that if we have faith in Him we can be saved.
There is a key difference in verse 24 that comes to us courtesy of the JST, instead of saying “being justified freely by his grace,” which could indicate that justification is given to any and all who want it regardless of their behaviors, the JST tells us “therefore being justified only by his grace.” This completely changes the meaning of the phrase, which now indicates that it is only through Christ’s grace that we are saved, there is no other way.
The IM defines grace as “a divine means of help and strength given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ.” It is through His grace that we will be resurrected and it is through this enabling power that we can repent and heal when it’s more than what we can do by ourselves.
I guess the summation of this part of chapter 3 is that we all sin and break the commandments à we can’t pay justice for these sins ourselves à Jesus paid the price for our sins and satisfied justice in a way we can notà therefore, is it only through Jesus’ atonement (and grace) that we can be forgiven of our sins and saved à works, specifically the ordinances of the law of Moses, do not save us, only Jesus’ atonement à We must believe in Jesus, which “faith leads to repentance and striving to live as Jesus Christ taught.”
If Jesus performed the atonement, how do we have or demonstrate belief in that, or faith?  How does knowledge about the atonement make a different in my life? How do the two concepts fit together? We can look at the two options I face: 1. Jesus really did pay for our sins and therefore is the only one that can grant salvation, or 2. Jesus did not pay for our sins or is not real or whatever, and when we die there is either darkness or misery with no compensation for anything bad that happened to us in this life. Option #2 is pretty depressing and I don’t want to believe in that, so I’m going to go with option #1.
If Jesus is the only person that can make any real difference for me, in the eternal sense, then it would behoove me to learn about him. First, my acceptance of Him as a real person, and what he says as really important, that’s the first step in faith, acceptance. Then we look at his teachings, and do our best to apply them to our lives, or turn our lives towards him which is the definition of “repentance.” This begins the journey of our perfection and redemption.
The beautiful part is that not only does he allow us to take this journey, but he helps us in profound and powerful ways to stay on it. It would be like someone telling you that they would allow you to earn $100 billion. That would be the deal of a lifetime, what an opportunity! But then if that person came back and said, “not only will I allow you to earn it, but I’ll help you in very powerful ways to succeed,” that’s unheard of. That’s the kind of deal that Jesus is offering to us, that not only will he save us if we keep the commandments, but he will also give us the power and strength to be able to do it. And I’d like to think that, even though I can barely understand what’s going on, this is what Paul is telling the people of Rome in his letter.