Romans 3:21-31
Dear RTB’ers,
Summarizing yesterday’s reading (and my post), one of the more oft-quoted verses in all of Scripture, especially in the context of sharing one’s faith: …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… (v. 23, formally known as Romans 3:23), one of the first memory verses for believers in evangelical denominations.
Verse 23 is meant to establish our guilt. Verse 24 then gives us “a way out”: …being justified … through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus… – Jesus is our “way out”, our ONLY “way out”! Essentially Paul lays out the essence of our Christian faith in these two verses: …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus… Paul then adds another thirteen chapters to help us understand what he means in these two verses. We read on!
Blessings!
See also: December 10 (2023) / Romans 1-4
Hmmm, thirteen chapters to go, but it’s all the same message…? (Ha, ha!)
One aspect of Paul’s writing, especially in Romans, is that I often must reread verses to trace what he’s saying. Here, he contrasts righteousness through keeping the Law versus believing in faith. Believing seems a lot easier, until I remember how Abraham was faithful through years of waiting for God’s promise to be fulfilled. His faith completely astonishes me when I read about his (almost) sacrifice of Isaac when he had already waited decades before God fulfilled the promise of an heir (and even so, since God had promised his offspring would be like the stars in the sky, wouldn’t you have expected God to maybe give you “an heir and a spare” if you had been Abraham?)
So maybe believing isn’t that easy after all. Or maybe I’m taking my faith for granted…