Lesson 7: The Righteousness of God through Faith – 3:21-31
 21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—
22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24 and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins.
26 It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.
28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also,
30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

As we read in the last lesson, we are free from the Law. But this does not mean we can now live any way we wish and commit any sin without consequences. Every sin has a consequence. Jesus did not set us free from the Law to live a life of sin. He wants us to live a life of righteousness and holiness as we read in our verses today.

As we have already read, righteousness that God wants in our life is not a righteousness we can find through our own effort of being good. As Verse 21 states, the righteousness He wants us to have is His own righteousness, and it is apart from the Law. This righteousness is ours by faith in Jesus Christ.


This righteousness is available to us no matter who we are, what our background is, or what our social status is. It is ours as a gift from God through Jesus Christ because, as we read in Verse 23, everyone has sinned.

How can God’s righteousness be ours when we are still subject to sin? We read the answer beginning in Verse 24 – we are justified by his grace as a gift to us. His gift to us is the redemption Jesus accomplished on the cross when He died for us. God had long ago set a pattern for us to be able to understand this redemption when He designed the worship in the tabernacle for the Jewish people. The payment for sin was always death, but God allowed a substitute to die for the sin of the person. The substitute was a perfect lamb or bull; an animal which had not done anything wrong was put to death for the sin of the person. This is a picture to those of us who live after Jesus Christ came to earth so we can understand how Jesus became the substitute sacrifice for our sin.

Why would God need to make a substitute for the sacrifice for sin? He did so because if we were to pay our own price for sin we would be dead and would not be able to accept His sacrifice for us. Jesus was the only one who could make this substitute sacrifice on our behalf, because He was God, is God, and has no sin for which He must pay His own price. As we read in Verse 26, Jesus could both be the “just” as well as the “justifier” for us. This means that He, being the “just,” would be our judge, but He could also be the one through whom the payment for sin could be paid for all of us.

Verse 31 asks the question: Can we overthrow the Law by this solution of faith in Jesus? And the answer is given – by no means! God’s standard of righteousness will always stand true, it is only that we are no longer subject to that law when we wear the robe of Jesus’ righteousness.

*What does wearing Jesus’ robe of righteousness mean in your life?