The questions for this week’s study were written by Adam Geurkink.

1. Take a moment to pray.  Praise God for His Word and ask Him to teach you its truth, just as the psalmist prayed in Psalm 119:12-16, “Praise be to You, O Lord; teach me Your decrees.  With my lips I recount all the laws that come from Your mouth.  I rejoice in following Your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.  I meditate on Your precepts and consider Your ways.  I delight in Your decrees; I will not neglect Your Word.”
2. Read Romans 3:25-31
3. God gave the nation of Israel a complex and elaborate system of sacrifices for the atonement of sin as a nation and individually.  However, Hebrews 10:3 states it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. In Romans 3:25, Paul says that “God put forward as a propitiation by His blood (Jesus’) to be received by faith”. What does propitiation mean and how is it different than the ceremonial rites of the Israelites in the Old Testament?
4. How does the satisfaction of God’s wrath by the sacrifice of Jesus (propitiation) show God’s righteousness? Do you think Jesus’ sacrificial death had to happen to show God’s righteousness? Why or why not?
5. God has revealed to us in His word and through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, His plan for redeeming mankind. Seeing this plan as Paul describes it, how is God both “just” and the “justifier” as described in 3:25?
6. C.S. Lewis says in his book “Mere Christianity” that pride is the sin that leads to all other sins. If boasting is the outward expression of pride, why can we not boast over others about our salvation?
7. 3:28 states the Christian understanding of how a person is justified before God and how he is not. Is there anything else, besides faith, that justifies a person, or does it require faith in Jesus, alone?
8. There was, at the time of Paul’s writing, an enormous cultural gap in the early church between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians. What do you suppose a gathering of Christians would have looked like when the Jews(who were deeply entrenched in Jewish custom like circumcision) and the Gentiles (who may not have known who Moses was) got together?
9. Is it helpful to be able to look past the differences between  Christians (political, social, national, etc..) when we realize that we all come to Jesus on equal ground by faith only?
10. Probably the most common objection to justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is that it will lead to moral chaos. If we know that obedience to the law is not required to be reconciled to God, do we then have license to live disobedient lives? How does Paul answer that? When you realized the gift of salvation given to you by God in Christ Jesus was free, was your response one of sinning more, or did you find you were being more obedient out of gratitude?

To access the entire “Good News” Study, click here.

The questions for this week’s study were written by Adam Geurkink.

1. As you prepare your heart for study, know that God desires to reveal Himself to you, and He has given you His Holy Spirit to guide you into truth.  Before you open in prayer, consider Jeremiah 9:23-24.  “This is what the Lord declares: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the Lord.”  Pray for this understanding and knowledge of God with the Holy Spirit as your guide.
2. Read Romans 3:24-25
3. Hebrews 4:15 says that Jesus was tempted in every way but was without sin. He was perfect in His obedience to the Law of God. The righteousness that God demands He provides in the perfect life and sacrifice of Jesus. It is Jesus’ righteousness that we need. How is that righteousness given to us?
4. When the righteousness of Jesus’ is given to someone, that person is declared to be “justified”. Justification is not a word that we use commonly but is considered to be the point on which “the Church stands or falls”.  What does justification mean, and is it a one time declaration or is it an ongoing process?
5. Paul says that we are justified by grace as a gift. How does thinking of justification as a gift help you understand what God has done to save us?
6. Redemption is another seldom used word in our culture, but it is helpful to understand the sinner’s position or situation that God finds us in when we are left to ourselves. What does redemption mean, and how does it clarify your understanding of mankind’s condition?

To access the entire “Good News” Study, click here.

The questions for this week’s study were written by Adam Geurkink.

1. As you pray for your study today, ask God to use His Word in your life as the writer of Hebrews prayed in Hebrews 13:20-21: “May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing His will, and may He work in us what is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.  Amen.”
2. Read Romans 3:21-23
3. Up to this point in his letter, Paul has laid out how everyone lives (and dies) by some kind of  law. For the Jew it is the law given to Moses on Mount Sinai and for gentiles and Jews before the law given to Moses, it is our conscience or natural law. By whatever law we live, Paul makes clear that we fail to keep the law, and are thus under God’s just judgment and penalty. God’s perfect holiness and character demands justice. What two words in 3:21 give us reason to hope for God’s mercy from the just condemnation Paul has described in the previous 2 and a half chapters?
4. “The righteousness of God” was a phrase that used to terrify Martin Luther, but later became a great comfort to him. What does “righteousness” mean and why would it terrify him if not understood properly in this passage?
5. The Law has been described as a mirror that shows us who we are, compared to what we should be. It has been said “you don’t use a mirror to wash your face, the mirror only shows you where the dirt is”. If the mirror is the law, what is it that cleanses us?
6. It is common to hear people say “nobody’s perfect” and “everyone sins”. Does God demand perfection from us?
7. If you answered yes to the above question, and Paul is right when he says “there is no one righteous, no not one”, where do we have any hope of  acquiring the perfection He demands? Can this righteousness be found within us or do we have to look outside of ourselves to find it?

To access the entire “Good News” Study, click here.

by Mark Robinson

Visual images are powerful teachers.  The faculty of a Nursing School in Auckland, New Zealand knew this . . . that is why they used it to teach one set of nursing students a valuable lesson.

A few years ago, a friend of mine was attending this school when her class was receiving some instruction on the importance of washing their hands while preparing for service.  Without informing the students of the experiment that they were about to undertake, the professor told the students to wash their hands well, then proceed to the examination room.  After washing their hands, the young nursing students walked into the examination room where they found the overhead lights turned off.  The only light that pierced the darkness of the room was a simple black light that was wanded over their now “clean” hands.  The visual that ensued is an image those students will not soon forget.  The black light revealed lots of dirt, soap residue, and other possible contaminants all over the newly washed hands of the nurses.  The lesson was clear . . . your hands are not as clean as you think they are.  A more thorough cleaning is necessary to prevent contamination and illness.

Romans 1:18-3:20 is one continuous argument.  The point of this section of Paul’s letter to the Romans was to reveal all humanity as lost, sinful, and separated from God.  The irreligious, moral, and religious people of the world ALL fall short of God’s glorious standard.  If the only verses we had in the Bible were Romans 1:18-3:20, we would ascertain that all humanity is sinful and separated from God with no hope of ever achieving salvation.  This is made clear as Romans 3:9 summarizes, “We have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.”

To say it another way, on our own, all people (whether they feel clean or not) are dirty before God.  These verses are like a black light to vividly reveal to us our sinfulness.  Our holy God cannot be contaminated by our sinful residue, so without an appropriate cleaner, humanity has no hope of salvation or a lasting relationship with God.

Thankfully, Romans 1:18-3:20 are not the only verses in the Bible.  Thankfully, these are not the only verses even in the letter Paul gave to the Romans!  Romans 3:1-20 share with us the bad news to prepare us for the GOOD NEWS that God wants us to know about in 3:21-ff.
Jesus is the One and only cleaner who can cleanse us from our sin and present us spotless and without blemish under any black light available.  It is only in Christ that we have hope, and Paul will explain that in great detail beginning in 3:21.

For now, however, in the course of our study of Romans, we need to allow the “black light” of these verses to fulfill their intended effect.  Allow this visual to teach each of us a lasting lesson — that apart from Christ, we are without hope.  Thankfully, this is not all of the story.

To access the entire “Good News” study, click here.