Paul's Epistle to the Romans — page 11

Chap. 3:25-26 – Some have asked how the sins of believers who lived long before the time of Christ could have been dealt with by His death on the cross, since they had already left the scene? And also, how could Christ bear the sins of believers who were not yet born? Their sins had not even been committed when Christ died! Anticipating these questions, Paul proceeds in the next verses to explain how Christ's work on the cross took care of the sins of believers once and for all, regardless of when they lived. Through two attributes of God – His patience and His foreknowledge (chaps. 3:25, 8:29) – God has been able to righteously deal with the sins of believers who lived before and after the cross, through what Christ accomplished on the Cross.

Paul says: “Whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to demonstrate His righteousness for the remission of sins previously committed, under the patience of God; To demonstrate His righteousness at this present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus”. As noted by the underline, twice in this passage Paul says: “To demonstrate His righteousness”. Once in connection with believers who lived before the death of Christ, and again in connection with believers who lived after the death of Christ.

• “To demonstrate His righteousness for the remission of sins previously [before the cross] committed” (v. 25).

• “To demonstrate His righteousness at this present time” which is after the cross (v. 26).

Propitiation

In both cases, God's righteousness was demonstrated in Christ's single act of “propitiation”. Propitiation (Rom. 3:25; Heb. 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10) refers to the part of Christ's work on the cross that fully satisfied the claims of divine righteousness with respect to sin. It is God's part in Christ's work and, through it, God's holy nature required what was due to Him regarding our sins and all the spread of sin in creation in general. Christ's finished work includes His expiatory sufferings, His death, and His shed blood. These three things are distinguished in Scripture but never entirely separated from one another. Thus, they should always be viewed as one work. Students of the Bible have fallen into error by separating these things from one another.

1. N. Darby states in his footnote on verse 25 that the

word translated as “propitiation” in the KJV could also be translated as “mercy seat”. Paul's argument here is that God has set forth Christ as the mercy seat in the testimony of the gospel. We might ask what this means, but it is quite simple. The mercy seat in the Old Testament sacrificial system was the place where God met with His people on the basis of the blood of a victim – a sacrifice (Ex. 25:22 – “there I will meet with you” (JND); Lev. 16:14). This illustrates (in type) what we announce in the testimony of the gospel. Christ set forth as the “mercy seat” in the gospel is the announcement that God is now able to meet with the sinner and bless him through the merits of Christ's sacrifice. This is the great result of propitiation having been made. Christ could not be set forth as such until His work on the cross was consummated. But now, since God has triumphed in what Christ accomplished, Christ (with His finished work) is the divine meeting place for all in the world to come and be saved. Some preachers say: “God will meet the sinner at the cross.” More precisely, He meets the sinner (who has faith) in Christ on high as the Mercy Seat. Christ is not on the cross today; therefore, the sinner who wishes to be saved does not come to a Savior who is dying on a cross, but to a risen Savior on high in glory. He is there today as an Object of testimony so that all may believe. Accordingly, the apostles preached Christ as the risen Savior throughout the book of Acts (Acts 4:10-12, 5:29-32, 10:38-43, 13:22-39, 16:31).

Paul adds: “through faith in His blood”. Christ's blood is the symbol of Christ's finished work (John 19:30, 34). To have faith in His blood, therefore, means that we have faith in what He accomplished in His sacrificial death. The sinner who comes to Christ for salvation must believe that what Christ accomplished in His death was personally for him.

Patience

Christ bearing the sins of believers who lived in times before the cross could only be possible through “the forbearance of God”. Forbearance has to do with God knowing and recording sins, but not requiring payment for them immediately after they are committed. Through His forbearance, God withheld or suspended the judgment of the sins of those who believed before Christ came to pay the price for them. (These people did not have knowledge of how, when, or where the Savior would come to pay the price for their sins, which was brought to light by the gospel.) This “passing over of sins” (JND) could not continue indefinitely; those sins had to be dealt with righteously at some point – and that is what happened at the cross. If God never dealt with them, He would prove to be unjust, for every sin and disobedience must receive its “just recompense” (Heb. 2:2). Therefore, His forbearance was in exercise in connection with the sins of all who had faith before the death of Christ. When they died, they went to heaven on a credit basis, so to speak. The judgment of their sins would be stored up by God until Christ came as the Sin-bearer, and then the judgment would be poured out on Him. The faith of those who lived before the time of Christ would be counted as righteousness, as was witnessed in the case of Abraham in chapter 4. When Abraham died he went to heaven (Luke 16:23), even though Christ had not actually yet paid for his sins. Thus, through divine forbearance, there was a “passing over of sins” for approximately 4,000 years of man's history, until the cross, when they were dealt with righteously and taken away forever.

There is a type of this in the Old Testament. In Joshua 3:14-17, the children of Israel crossed the Jordan River and entered the land of Canaan. At the moment the feet of the priests who carried “the ark of God” (a type of Christ) touched the edge of the river, a miracle occurred. The waters of the Jordan (which speak of the judgment that was poured out on Christ at the cross) that came from upstream “rose up in a heap” and were stopped for their entire course back to the “city of Adam” (ARF) – which was located on the river about 30 kilometers to the north. This typifies the efficacy of Christ's work at Calvary, being able to care for the sins of all who had faith for the entire course back to Adam, the first sinner.

The “forbearance of God” is also illustrated in type on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16). Each year, the blood of the victim was placed on the mercy seat, and God exercised His forbearance regarding the sins of Israel for another year. In the epistle to the Hebrews, Paul explains that since the process had to be repeated year after year (Heb. 9:7), it showed that those sins were still remembered before God, and that the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement had not taken away those sins. They were covered (the meaning of atonement in the Hebrew language) for another year by those sacrifices, but they had not been taken away. In Hebrews 10, Paul goes on to explain that when Christ came His single offering for sins was sufficient to “take away” the sins of believers, once for all (Heb. 10:1-17; 1 John 3:5).

Chapter 3:25 of the King James Version is a little misleading. It says: “sins that are past”. This has led some to think that Paul was referring to the sins that Christians committed in their lives before they were converted. But, as we have shown, that is not what Paul was talking about. The footnote of J. N. Darby's Translation states: “God passed over the sins, and did not bring them to judgment, of the Old Testament believers.” Thus, it was the sins of people who lived in the “past” [former times] – that is, in Old Testament times.

Furthermore, the King James Version says: “the remission of sins”, but this phrase should be translated as “the passing over of sins”. Remission of sins is the forgiveness of sins, and is often translated as such (Luke 24:47; Acts 5:31, 13:38, 26:18; Eph. 1:7). As announced in the gospel, it involves the soul knowing in its conscience that its sins are eternally forgiven, and it has to do with the believer having a purified conscience (Heb. 9:14, 10:1-17). This eternal aspect of the forgiveness of sins, which Christians have, is something that the Old Testament saints did not have. Their sins were dealt with at the cross, and the saints are in heaven now, but they did not have conscious knowledge of this in their lives. There is no need, therefore, to translate the passage as “the remission of sins”. Old Testament believers only knew the governmental forgiveness of God, which has to do with God forgiving (and not punishing) a person for his errors while he lives on Earth, because the person is repentant (Lev. 4; Ps. 32, etc.). The forgiveness offered by the Lord in His earthly ministry in the four gospels was also governmental (Luke 5:20, 7:47-48, etc.). The eternal aspect of forgiveness was first announced after redemption was accomplished, when Christ rose from the dead (Luke 24:47; Acts 2:38, etc.).

Foreknowledge

The other great attribute of God that we mentioned is “foreknowledge.” Foreknowledge is God's ability to know everything before it happens (Acts 2:23; Rom. 8:29; 1 Pet. 1:2). Since God knows how many sins each believer will commit in his life – even before the person is born – He could place the righteous judgment of those sins on the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross before they actually happened. Thus, Christ also bore the judgment of the sins of all who would believe during this “present time” – that is, the Day of Grace (v. 26).

Therefore, on the cross, Christ made propitiation, and a full payment was made for the sins of all believers of all times. God took the sins of all who have faith – from the beginning of time to the end of time – and placed them on Christ, the Sin-bearer, and He bore the just judgment for them.

All your sins were laid upon Him, Jesus bore them on the tree; God, who knew them, laid them on Him, And, believing, you are free.

The Little Flock Hymnal No. 35