Pathway to Victory

Speaker 1

Hey, podcast listeners, thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's Word through the most effective media available, like this podcast.

To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes.

Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Robert Jeffress and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day. This Bible teaching program on today's edition of Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 3

The bad news is not one of us has the right spiritual garments to enter into heaven. Our righteousness is like a filthy moth-eaten rag to God.

The good news is God offers his righteousness. And when we trust in Christ as our Savior, God wraps us in the righteousness that belongs to Christ Jesus.

Speaker 1

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress.

How does a person put himself in right standing with God? Well, admittedly, that's not a question you hear many people ask today. But a weak answer to that question puts our entire future at risk.

Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress opens to Romans chapter three to answer this critical question on how to become right with God.

Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message, Dr. Jeffress.

Speaker 2

Thanks David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. In the last year, we've heard from more listeners and viewers than ever before, which assures us that God is using your partnership to reach men and women with the truth of his word. As a result of this accelerated growth, we're designing additional avenues to help you beyond the radio and television programs.

One of those tools is a popular multifolded map. It's called the Journeys of Paul Map. Paul was the most significant missionary in Christian history, and he wrote nearly half of the New Testament. This spectacular map gives you a personal way to trace Paul's footsteps and to discover why these three missionary journeys have significance in your life today. I want you to have a copy while supplies last. And there's no cost when you follow the simple instructions at ptv.org.

Second, we've set aside another Bible study tool for you. It's an illustrated guide to the Apostle Paul. I've spent a lifetime studying the writings and leadership of Paul. He's one of the heroes of our Christian faith, and this is one of the finest books I've come across to help me understand the times in which Paul lived. With pictures, diagrams, and maps, this Illustrated Guide has become a treasured resource in my own studies. Let me send you a copy today. It's yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory.

We'll repeat this information again in a bit, but right now let's commence with our study in the book of Romans. I titled today's message from Romans chapter three. And now for the Gospel.

Speaker 3

I feel like today I need to begin the message by offering a disclaimer. I need to explain to you what you are not going to hear in today's message. Today you're not going to hear five scintillating secrets for a successful marriage. Although what you're going to hear today is the basis for any strong relationship. Nor are you going to hear three secrets for being successful at work. In fact, today's message, if anything, is anti-work. But what you are going to hear today is the answer to life's most important question. It's the question Job asked in Job 9, verse 2, when he said, "How can a man be right before God?" When you think about it, isn't that the bottom line question of all existence? How can I be in a right standing with God?

Now admittedly, that's not a question a lot of people are asking today. Most people today are more interested in short-term gratification than they are in eternal salvation. By the way, that's nothing new. People's disinterest in spiritual matters has always been a part of history. When Paul wrote to his Christians at Rome, he wrote to a culture 2,000 years ago that was much more interested in sports and sex than it was spirituality. Does that sound familiar to you today? Just look at the paper. We are saturated with sports and with sex. Very few people are interested in spiritual matters. But that spiritual disinterest did not keep the Apostle Paul from proclaiming boldly and clearly the answer to life's most important question: how can a man be right before God? And it's the answer to that question we're going to discover today in our continued study of the book of Romans.

If you have your Bibles, turn, if you would, to Romans chapter 3, beginning with verse 21. For weeks we have been in the first section of Romans in which Paul talks about the problem of righteousness. What is the problem of righteousness? The fact is, none of us has any righteousness of our own. None of us is in a right standing with God. Paul says there is not one righteous among us. No, not even one. But now we come to verse 21 of chapter three, which is the hinge, the turning point into the second major section of Romans. And that is the provision for righteousness. Those two words, "but now," are the contrast between the way we were apart from Christ, dead without hope in this world, and what has happened to us through Christ. And it is that provision for righteousness that we discover beginning in verse 21.

The great expositor, Donald Gray Barnhouse, said these 11 verses are the most important 11 verses in all of the Bible. Because these verses answer the most important question in all of existence: How can a person be right with God? And here's what Paul's going to answer. Paul says God's righteousness is not a reward, but it is a gift to those who trust in the redemptive work of Christ. Let me say it again so you can write it down. God's righteousness, a right standing with God, is not a reward. It is a gift to those who trust in the redemptive work of Christ.

Now let's see how Paul develops that truth. First of all, beginning in verse 21, the reality of God's gift. Now, admittedly, these first six verses, verses 21 to 26, are very complicated verses to understand. So I'm going to help unpack them for you by giving you three statements that summarize these first six verses. First of all, Paul says God's righteousness is offered as a gift. God's righteousness, or right standing with God, is offered as a gift. Look at verses 21 to 23. But now, apart from the law, I want you to underline that: apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Remember, Paul has just said earlier in the first two and a half chapters, no one has any righteousness. None of us is in a right standing before God. And not only that, there's nothing we can do to earn a right standing before God. Remember that word Paul used earlier in chapter three to describe our righteousness? He said it is like rancid sour milk. Just like that chocolate milk I talked about last week, I had the unprecedented, unfortunate experience of drinking. It was putrefied. It was worthless. That is the way your righteous acts and my righteous acts are before God. Isaiah, the prophet, said our righteousness, the best we can do, is like a filthy rag to God. We cannot earn God's righteousness. But Paul says God offers his righteousness as a gift.

I've used this illustration before, but I use it again because it's a great way to explain to a non-Christian or a Christian what we mean when we say God's righteousness is a gift. Think about it, man. If you took your wife to a nice, expensive restaurant here in Dallas, you had saved up your money, you were ready for a great evening, you come to the restaurant and you see on the podium in front of the maitre d' a little placard that says "dinner jackets required." The problem is you don't have a dinner jacket. And you're about to leave when the maitre d' says, "You're not the first person to come in with that problem. And so we've made a provision for you." He goes back and gets some moldy sports jacket they've been keeping back there since the days of the Ark. He brings it out and he says, "You know what? If you would like, you can put this jacket on and you will be welcomed into the restaurant."

At that point, then you have a choice. You can say, "If you don't like my stinking clothes, I'll take my business elsewhere," or you can humble yourself, conform to the requirements, put the jacket on, and be welcomed into the restaurant. Now, the same choice applies to us when it comes to entering into heaven. The bad news is not one of us has the right spiritual garments to enter into heaven. Our righteousness is like a filthy, moth-eaten rag to God. The good news is God offers his righteousness. And when we trust in Christ as our Savior, God wraps us in the righteousness that belongs to Christ Jesus. And when God looks at us, he no longer sees our unrighteousness. He sees the perfection of his Son.

And that's why Paul prayed in Philippians, chapter three, "My prayer is that I might be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith in Christ." That's what he's talking about in verse 21. Here he says the righteousness God offers is apart from the law. Apart from the law. It has nothing to do with keeping the law. And not only that, not only is it apart from the law, but it is a righteousness, look at this, verse 21, that was witnessed by the law and the prophets. You know, one of the greatest misnomers about Christianity and the Bible is this: some people believe, well, in the Old Testament, people were saved by works, and in the New Testament, people are saved by faith in Christ. Nothing could be further from the truth. Salvation has always been offered as a gift, not a reward. And that's what Paul is saying here. This plan is nothing new. It was witnessed to by the law and the prophets.

For example, think about in the very first book of the Bible, Genesis. Remember in Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve sinned against God, their fellowship was broken. They felt ashamed. And so what did they do? They manufactured this inadequate covering of fig leaves and placed it on themselves, thinking that would solve the problem of their guilt. And remember one day Adam and Eve were talking, and Eve said to Adam, "Adam, do you feel the same draft I'm feeling right now?" Is that not in your Bible? It's in mine. No, it's not in the Bible, but I imagine that's what happened. They realized their covering was inadequate because it was. And what did God do? He killed the first animal. The first death in the Bible was the killing of that animal that God killed. He took the skin of that animal and made a covering for Adam and Eve, thereby telling them, but not them only, but all of mankind, that we are inadequate to prepare a covering for ourselves. We need a covering of an innocent to cover our sin.

Speaker 2

For us.

Speaker 3

That was a picture of the fact that salvation would be a gift, not a reward. We see that story in Abraham, that truth in Abraham. Remember, God told Abraham to take his son Isaac to Mount Moriah and to offer him as a sacrifice. And at the very last moment, God provided the Lamb that sacrifice for the sin. And we see that, as we'll see in a moment in the Mosaic Law. God never meant the law to save people. It was a mirror to demonstrate our own unrighteousness and a need for a covering. Year after year, the Israelites would offer hundreds of sacrifices as a way of saying we cannot atone for our sins. Someone must atone for our sins for us. What Paul is saying is it has always been God's plan that his righteousness would never be a reward; it would be a gift from him.

Secondly, notice that God's righteousness is based on the work of Christ. Another great misunderstanding about salvation is this: people think, well, when God forgives you, what it means is God overlooks your sin. He turns the other way. He plays like it never happened. A holy God, ladies and gentlemen, cannot do that. God said, the soul that sins shall die. Our sin creates a debt that has to be satisfied. You say, well, what about verse 25 here that says in the forbearance of God, he passed over sins previously committed? That was only for a short time. Yes, God passed over sins for a while until Christ came, and the full wrath of God was poured out on Christ, who had to satisfy that debt.

Now, I want you to notice in this passage there are three words that describe exactly what Christ did for us to satisfy that sin debt. Three words. And you find them all in verses 24, 25, and 26. First of all, the word redemption. Look at verse 24: "Being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus." That word redemption in Greek is the word ex agerazo, ex agarazzo. You say, well, why should I care about that? Well, the word agarazo comes from the word agora. It means the marketplace. Whether you go to Rome or you go to Philippi or any Roman or Greek city, you'll find the remnants of the agora. Think of it as an outdoor mall. That's where people went to shop.

One of the things some people went to shop for in the agora was for slaves. Remember when Paul wrote these words, one third of the world's population was slave. And so a slave owner, if he were in the market for a new slave, would go to the agora. Now, into the agora were brought the slaves: men, women, boys, and girls. They were brought in chains and placed on a wooden platform. There, the potential buyers would look at them, poke them, and prod them like they would an animal to see if this was an acceptable slave. If they determined that that was the slave they wanted, they would pay the price of the slave, redeem the slave, and lead him out of the marketplace. That's what the word ex agerazo means. Agora, the marketplace. Ex out of. To redeem something means to buy a slave and take him out of the slave market.

Now listen to this. When the slave owner had paid the price for that man, that woman, that boy, or girl, the slave was his. He was free to do whatever he wanted to with that slave. He could work him, he could abuse him, he could molest him or her. He could kill the slave if he wanted to. That slave belonged to the slave owner. Ladies and gentlemen, the Bible tells us that when we were born into this world, we were born into Satan's slave owner's market. He was our owner. He had full rights over us. He is free to abuse, to torture, to kill whomever he wants to. And we were all in that desperate condition. But God, for no other reason than the great love with which he loved us, sent his son Jesus to be the ransom, the payment for our sins. Jesus Christ has redeemed us by his blood. He has purchased us and delivered us out of Satan's sin market into the presence of Jesus Christ.

The Bible says because of that, because we now belong to God, we're not free to live however we want to live. He didn't buy us just to release us and let us on our own. No. Paul said in First Corinthians 6:19, "For do you not know you are not your own? You have been purchased with a price." That's what Christ has done for us. He has redeemed us. He has purchased us out of the slave market of sin.

There's a second word he uses in this passage to describe Christ's work for us, and that's the word propitiation. Propitiation. Look at verse 25, talking about Jesus, "whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith." This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed. Now, that word propitiation simply means write down the word satisfaction. Christ satisfied the requirements of God. Propitiation means satisfaction or an appeasement. When Christ redeemed us, he appeased the demands of a holy God.

Now, some people find this idea offensive. They say, I don't want to think of God as some bloodthirsty deity who demands satisfaction. They point to pagan religions in the world and say, that's just like pagan religions. Pagan religions teach that there are all these false gods up there who demand to be appeased, satisfied. That's why people engage in religious ritual or throw their children to the crocodiles. In some cultures, they're trying to appease an angry God. We want no part of a religion like that. But here's the difference between all the other religions of the world and Christianity: in all the other religions of the world, it is man who is trying to propitiate and appease a God. But only in Christianity do we find the fact that we are incapable of satisfying the requirements of God. It is Christ who satisfies the demands of God.

We see that demonstrated so well in that picture of the holy of holies that was in the tabernacle and later in the permanent temple. Remember what the holy of holies was? It was the most holy place in the temple. It was a place sectioned off from the rest of the temple by a great veil. Once a year, the high priest, after making a sacrifice for his own sin, would walk into the holy of holies, between the veil, into the holy of holies. In that holy of holies, there was a box, the Ark of the Covenant, that contained, among other things, the ten commandments of God. On the top of that box, the Ark of the Covenant, there was a lid of gold. It was called the Mercy Seat. On either side of that lid were cherubim, representatives of angels that guarded the holiness of God. It was thought that the presence of God dwelt between those cherubim.

The picture was that for 359 out of the 360 days in that holy of holies, God was looking down on his law in that box that man had broken. It was a continual picture of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. But remember, once a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the high priest, after making a sacrifice for his own sin, would come with the blood of an innocent animal into the holy of holies. He would take that blood and sprinkle it on the lid, the Mercy Seat, so that when God looked down on that box, he no longer saw the law that man had broken. Instead, that broken law was covered. It was atoned for by the blood of that innocent animal.

Now, here's the $64,000 question. Who provided that lamb? Did man create a lamb to be a sacrifice for his sin? No. Remember what Leviticus 17:11 says. God says, "I have given it to you," that is a sacrifice on the altar to make atonement for your souls. God was the one who created that lamb to be the covering for sin. Jesus Christ was that perfect sacrifice. Not only was he the sacrifice for our sins, he is the one who offered the sacrifice.

Remember, in the Old Testament, the high priest had to come in every year, year after year after year, to make the same sacrifice. Countless animals were sacrificed. The priest would die, and there'd be a new high priest. But listen to what the writer of Hebrews says. The perfect high priest Jesus did for us in Hebrews 9:11-12. The writer says, "But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, he entered through a greater and more perfect tabernacle, one not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens. And not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, he entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption."

That Old Testament sacrifice, the temple, the tabernacle, they were just a picture of what is in heaven in the presence of God. When Jesus died and ascended into heaven, he entered through that holy of holies into the presence of God and made the eternal one-time sacrifice for our redemption, and there is nothing left to add to it. That's what Jesus Christ has done for us.

Speaker 2

The Gospel radically transformed lives in the first century, and it continues to transform lives to this very day. I thought about Paul when I read this letter from one of our listeners. Paul was the most unlikely man to receive the Gospel at one time. Paul hated Christians, but his life was transformed just like Randy's.

Randy said, "A decade ago I was addicted to meth. I allowed drugs to rule my life. I've been in and out of prison. When I was in a county jail, I found Pathway to Victory on radio. At the end of the sermon, I prayed the prayer of salvation asking God to change my life. Ten years later, I'm still delivered from drugs and I still rely on the teaching of Robert Jeffress."

And then Randy added this: "I'm thankful for the partners who support Pathway to Victory so that prisoners like me could hear the good news of Christ." Well, Randy's gratitude belongs to anyone who's given generously to Pathway to Victory. God is using your gifts to touch lives.

If it's been a long time since you've sent a generous gift to Pathway to Victory, or maybe you've never done so, let me give you a little nudge. Remember, when you give today, I'm going to say thanks by sending an illustrated guide to the Apostle Paul to your home. You'll enjoy this resource for many years to come as you become better acquainted with the cultural influences in Paul's day and as you see the similarities to life in 2025.

Thank you for your confidence in Pathway to Victory and your partnership with us. God will use your gift today to pierce the darkness with the light of his word. David thanks Dr. Jeffress.

Speaker 1

Today, when you invest in the ministry of Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, we'll say thanks by sending you the book *An Illustrated Guide to the Apostle Paul*. It comes with a copy of the *Journeys of Paul Map*. It's an ideal reference companion. To request this special package of resources, call 866-999-2965 or visit our website ptv.org. When your investment is $75 or more, we'll also send you the audio and video discs for the *Grace Powered Living Teaching Series* featuring Romans Chapters one through eight. Ask for your copy of the *Grace Powered Living Teaching set* when you call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org.

You're always welcome to write to us at this address: P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. Again, that's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, TX 75222. I'm David J. Mullins. Next time, we'll hear the conclusion of this highly important message on how to become right with God. So join us again Friday for Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word.

To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.