3:26
The cross demonstrates the justice and righteousness of God. Sometimes people ask “why couldn’t God just forgive?” The answer is that sin is far more serious than that. When something seriously wrong is done it cannot be just swept under the carpet, just overlooked. On the cross our sin was fully confronted and fully paid for. Islam has a form of forgiveness, but there is no justice, the sin of a man is not atoned for. Only in the gospel is our sin atoned for. We can be confident that God has nothing against us, there is no debt still to be paid. The cross solves the conundrum of how can a righteous God love an unrighteous people. Through the cross we are made righteous.
3:27
Paul now returns to the Jew, or possibly also the moral Gentile. The Jew was proud of his Jewish heritage, a moral person may be proud of their “goodness”, but in the gospel there is no room for boasting. On our own merits what have any of us got to boast about? All we can offer God is a catalogue of sins and a deeply corrupted nature. The “law that requires works” itself testifies against us. So instead we rely on the “law” that requires faith.
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