Nobody likes bad news, but we sure have been getting a lot of it over the last year and a half or so. The housing bubble burst, the banks are in trouble, the stock market tanks, the big 3 US auto makers about to go under, the big government bailouts leaving the country in trillions of dollars in debt, the rising unemployment rate all lead to a depressed society in more ways than one. Just the past week we've had more bad news concerning the deaths of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcet, Micheal Jackson and Billy Mays. That's not to mention the daily accounts of service men and women being killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Enough with the bad news already. I'm ready for some good news. I don't need anymore bad news. But some how or another I can't seem to escape it. My dog greets me this morning with a huge "hot spot" on one of his legs, which means another trip to the vet, more antibiotics, more unnecessary bills just when I took a pay cut from the church due to declining income and rising expenses. Will it ever stop?
Romans is one of those books that not only lays out the good news but it also delivers some bad news. In Romans 1:16, Paul says that he's not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation. The word Gospel means good news. He goes on to say in verse 17 that in the Gospel a righteousness of God is revealed. As Martin Luther read those words he declared the Gospel not to be good news but bad news. How could anyone live up to the righteousness of God?
A few verses later Paul quotes from the Old Testament declaring that no one is righteous, not even one. That's not good news. Then here in Romans 3 he states that all, as in everyone on the planet, has sinned and is far away from the glory of God. Great! That rules out any chances I had of getting into a relationship with God or the hope of heaven.
But the Gospel truly is good news. Luther finally realized that although he didn't stand a chance with God on his own merit, through faith in what God did for us through Jesus Christ made it possible to live in intimacy with God today and in heaven with Him for eternity. He wrote on his monastery walls "Faith alone."
In today's verses, Paul clearly tells us that a righteousness from God is available through believing in Jesus. Even though we are all sinners in God's eyes (the only one who's opinion counts), there is justification and redemption in Christ substitutionary death on the cross. Justification simply means that God made things right for us with Him by paying the penalty of our sins through Jesus' death. Redemption simply means that God bought us from a life of slavery to ourselves and the burden of a sinful life. He paid our sin debt so that we could be free.
The good news is that I'm free in Christ to really live. I have a righteousness from God draped over my life. As Charles Swindol has said, I'm not 99.9% righteous otherwise the Bible would have to be rewritten to say, "though my sins be as scarlet, they will be light pink." As a believer in Jesus I'm considered 100% righteous in the eyes of God. In fact, that is the only way I can have a relationship with God and enter into the gates of heaven.
God, thanks for the GOOD NEWS. I know that I'm a mess without you. Thanks for clothing me with Christ. Thanks for loving me. Thanks for renewing me. Thanks for giving me hope for this life and beyond.
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