I want you to imagine something. I want you to imagine that, for you whole life, you’ve never really been sure of where you stand with God. Imagine you’ve lived your life on a bartering system: If you need something from God you’ve got to be willing to give him a little something first. It’s a system that the church endorses and that you’ve tried to live with.
You’re scared of God. He seems angry, demanding. Ready to punish the slightest infraction with the most severe judgment possible. You know He has limitless power, His holiness is infinite. Compared to Him you feel like you are nothing, not even a speck. I guess you’d actually prefer it to be that way . . . but instead of feeling invisible to God you often feel the heat of His white-hot spotlight blazing upon you. Inspecting you. Testing you. Watching you.
You’ve tried to be good. You’ve tried to do what pleases Him. But still you don’t feel your actions don’t measure up to His long, long list of demands. You’ve made vows and promises and resolutions, you’ve done everything imaginable to live a pure life, but instead of peace all you feel is the stain of sin growing and growing and growing.
Just imagine what it must be like! No matter how extreme you get you can’t feel righteous before God! You lock yourself in your room for days and do nothing but pray, but it doesn’t work. You deny yourself food, trying to fast the sin out of you, but it doesn’t work. You even forgo drinking water, deny yourself sleep, pray through the night, but still there is no release for your soul. You even try beating yourself with whips, desperately trying to use pain to purify yourself and keep your rebellious body under control, but nothing works!
To make matters worse, no one takes you seriously! You feel the taint of sin creeping into you, and so you go to the priest for confession. Unfortunately, he’s tired of seeing you! You’re always there, listing off every single little sin that you can find, ready, willing, and able to do whatever act of penance may be required, but the priest finally just tells you what you know is a lie: He tells you just to do your best and that will be good enough for God. But you know better. You know the righteousness of God is something that can never be appeased through human effort. You know . . . because you’ve tried . . . and you’ve failed.
This is exactly what the young monk Martin Luther was facing. As he lay in his cell in the monastery, day after day after day he would be tortured by the righteousness of God: that lofty, untouchable, unknowable holiness that soundly condemned him at every turn for what he knew himself to be: a sinner.
Until one day when Martin Luther opened up the book of Romans. Until one day when God opened up Luther’s eyes to what the righteousness of God truly is.
Luther began to read in Romans, and as he read he eventually came across chapter three verse nineteen. And if you’ll accept a paraphrase, this is what Luther saw:
“But we know that whatever the law says it says to those under the law, in order that every mouth may be shut and the whole of creation may be held accountable to God . . .” Luther knew that was true. Every time he came to God and tried to offer Him some good work, some good deed, it was as though the Law convicted him before he could even get a word out. “God, I (snap!) . . . Lord, I (snap!)”
Luther found the reason for this as he read on: “for from the works of the law there can be no one who is justified before Him, for through the Law is the knowledge of sin.” Can you imagine the despair he must have felt at that moment? Sure, it’s one thing to know in your heart that trying to be good and following the commandments—trying to produce righteousness in yourself—can’t give you peace before God . . . but it’s another thing entirely to have the Scriptures tell you.
And if you’ve ever tried to be “good” on your own, if you’ve ever really, truly tried to do what’s right so that you can please God, then you know the same thing that Luther did: attempting to keep every commandment of the Law only shows you how completely and totally impossible it is to do just that. If we’re going to be honest with ourselves, we’ll have to admit that “good enough” isn’t good enough for a righteous, holy God.
See, Luther was trapped there, in the same quandary that you and I have been in. We want to do better, we want to do God-pleasing things, we want to get rid of the effects of sin in our lives . . . but what happens? Each and every single time, what happens?
Personal righteousness isn’t a game. There is no off-season. There are no time-outs. In order to make yourself completely, truly righteous you have to be spot-on, each and every time. No errors. No mistakes. No slip-ups. You have to always avoid evil. You have to always do good. Don’t commit any sins, but don’t omit any chance to do good, either. Every action, every deed, every thought, every attitude must be brought perfectly in line with God’s commandments for us to have any kind of personal righteousness at all.
So we’re sunk. A righteous and holy God demands righteousness. A righteousness that we cannot attain, no matter how hard we try, through trying to keep His Law. If you were Martin Luther, what would you do at this point? Imagine his despair: No expectation, no confidence, no hope to produce righteousness in himself at all. Many men would give up at that point. Just give up and go crawl back into the wall.
But the reason why we’re celebrating the Reformation today is because when man is ready to give up, God is just beginning to work! So Luther, crushed to the absolutely lowest point in his entire life, recognizing that all of his efforts had been in vain, reads on: “But now apart from the law” . . . what? Apart from the Law? “Apart from the Law a righteousness of God has been made known . . .” You mean instead of keeping the Law? Instead of trying to be perfect? God has a righteousness that can be obtained through something else rather than torturing myself with keeping the Law?
“Apart from the Law, a righteousness of God has been made known, one that is witnessed to by the law and the prophets—in other words, all of the Scriptures—a righteousness of God through faith . . .” Through faith? A righteousness of God through faith?? “A righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.”
Well, the young monk is stunned. Amazed. All this time he’s been trying to make his personal righteousness live up to the demands of the righteousness of God. But now he reads from God’s very Word that the righteousness of God isn’t a demand, but a gift! It is something that can be received by anyone who believes upon Jesus Christ!
You can feel his burden lifting! Luther’s heart starts to pound, he senses the strange, strange feeling of hope creeping into his belly. He starts to think, “God’s righteousness isn’t a standard to live up to . . . but a gift of holiness to be received through Jesus Christ! I can’t produce that kind of righteousness on my own, and therefore I can’t be pleasing to God on my own . . . but in Jesus Christ I receive God’s very righteousness. God is not my enemy, my judge . . . God is my gracious heavenly Father!”
And he reads on, “For there is no distinction, for all sin and have been inadequate of the glory of God . . .” Well, isn’t that the truth! “for all sin and have been inadequate of the glory of God, and yet are declared righteous without cost by His grace through the deliverance that is in Christ Jesus!” Yeeaaah!
This truth was a monumental life-change for Luther. This truth was a history-making moment for the world. Luther remembers his own reaction to this new epiphany: (followed by a reading from What Luther Says, pg 1225)
This passage in Paul . . . this opens the portal of Paradise to us, as well.
Romans 3:19-28 19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. 21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. 27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.
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