Jesus Paid the Ransom to Justify You - and it Cost You Absolutely Nothing
Jesus Paid the Ransom to Justify You - and it Cost You Absolutely Nothing
Thinking about Romans 3:22-24.
For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, (Romans 3:22-24)
Paul reminds his audience of his point from Romans 1:18-3:20 - “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Whether someone was a Jew or Gentile, they had chosen to sin and fell short of God’s glory.
This meant that justification happened the same for both Jews and Gentiles.
Justified freely by God’s grace.
The verb “justify” is a legal term; it signifies a judge’s ruling that a person is innocent of the charges against him. Paul used it almost exclusively of God’s judgment in pronouncing sinners as righteous. - Pollard, Truth for Today Commentary, 123
When Paul says that sinners are “justified,” he means God has pronounced them innocent and righteous. This justification is not deserved or earned in any way by the lawbreakers.
There is an exclusion of merit or earning. Paul, in essence claims that we are justified before God although the grounds for that justification is not within us. - McGuiggan, Romans, 127
Sinners are justified “freely,” meaning it didn’t cost the sinner anything - for there is nothing we could have paid. There is no payment we as sinners could have made to receive the pronouncement of “innocent” from the righteous Judge of all the earth. Justification is a gift - it is offered “free of charge” by the grace of God.
The fundamental idea of grace is a gift, given out of the sheer generosity of the giver’s heart, a gift which the receiver could never have earned and could never have deserved by any efforts of his own. - Barclay, The Mind of St. Paul
While sinners are justified “free of charge,” it wasn’t free - our justification cost Someone something. This precious gift was a high price that Jesus Christ paid.
Justified through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
The justification of sinners is “through” the redemption or ransom payment in Christ Jesus.
The redemption wasn’t by silver and gold but by the precious blood of Christ [1 Peter 1:18-19]. It wasn’t by brains or brawn. It wasn’t by culture or social standing. Deliverance doesn’t lie in working out way out, or inventing our way out or subverting our way out, or carousing our way out, or thinking our way out, or warring our way out, but by admitting that Christ is the way out! - McGuiggan, Romans, 128
The idea of “redemption” dates back to a first-century world where slavery was common in the Roman Empire. The word “redemption” would have brought to mind the idea of a slave’s freedom being bought at a price.
The thing which man forfeited by sinning is life…and the penalty which he incurred is future punishment. Now Christ has taken his own life, as it were, and with it, as a ransom, buys us off from sin and its penalty. In other words he pays his life for us, and so releases us from sin and its consequences. - Lard, Romans, 116
The death of Jesus Christ on the cross was a payment. That payment was made for sinners - for us. That payment was made to set us free.
On this ground depends everything. To expand it, in all its amplitude, would be to write the history of human redemption, from its conception in the mind of God up to its consummation in the glorification of the saved. - Lard, Romans, 116
Just as the Emancipation Proclamation stands as a declaration of freedom to the once enslaved people in the United States, the cross stands as a payment for the freedom of sinners.
When you think about Jesus dying on the cross - think about a transaction made for you. He paid the ransom price to set you and me free.
No wonder a new song was sung around the throne of God.
And they sang a new song, saying:
“You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).