Justification by Faith, Part 1
Lesson 6 Notes: Romans 3:27-31
“For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” (Romans 3:28)
People live in seemingly constant competition for limited resources. Maybe you contend indirectly for income-generating work to buy what you need—food, clothing, shelter. Or perhaps you compete directly for access to clean water, agricultural land, or building materials. We struggle alongside other people who share the same basic needs to live and flourish. So many things in this life require focused effort and constant work. How do basic human needs impact your life each day? Have you focused on tangible resources at the expense of your spiritual needs? There is good news. Your deepest need cannot be met through your struggle or competition.
The good news of salvation by grace through faith alone negates human contribution and transforms competition. The limitless resource of God’s righteousness shimmers before us in this lesson. We will never be more worthy of salvation than anyone else. Likewise, we will never be less worthy. Paul sought to help his readers understand that Jesus is the standard God uses to evaluate righteousness and bestow the blessing of justification—not titles, positions, or accomplishments. God justifies people through faith in Christ alone. Paul invites all people to believe in Jesus rather than pursue salvation through efforts that will always fall short.
So far in his epistle, Paul has explained sin as the problem all people have and God-pleasing righteousness as the need all people share. But God has always given all people access to His righteousness through the same means—faith. We will explore this important teaching in two parts:
Because God justifies sinners by faith alone, no one can boast and everyone is welcome. Jesus—who perfectly upheld God’s law—receives all the glory for our salvation.
Faith Excludes Boasting – Romans 3:27-28
God makes salvation possible through His provision of a Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus became the ultimate atoning sacrifice, redeeming people from sin and securing their justification. How do people under sin’s power access the justification Jesus provides? By faith in Jesus’s saving work. Justification by faith leaves nothing for which any mere human can take sole credit.
This passage begins with a question followed by its answer, “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded.” Boasting expresses prideful thoughts and beliefs with self-elevating words or actions. Praise that exalts us comes at the expense of acknowledging what God has done. The sin of pride reveals humanity’s fallen condition. Paul’s previous discussion of sin provided examples of pride rooted in human hearts.1 People claiming to be wiser than their Creator become fools. People who judge others for sins they also commit condemn themselves. People who brag about knowing God’s law dishonor Him by breaking it.
Sins of pride have plagued humanity since our beginning. When tempted in God’s perfect garden, Eve expressed a prideful desire to “be like God, knowing good and evil.”2 The king of Babylon said, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; ... I will make myself like the Most High.”3 Jesus referred to Satan’s prideful fall from heaven.4 All forms of human competition or comparison with God attempt to diminish Him and bring Him to the level of a created being. However, the incomprehensible creator God exceeds His creation just as a craftsman exceeds the final product his efforts produce.
Sinful pride still plagues humanity today. Cultures around the world celebrate pride in oneself, one’s family, or one’s position as a valuable character trait. However, Proverbs 16:18 warns, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Pride’s self-focus crowds out thoughts of God and the desire to seek, know, and follow Him.5 Pride also breeds competition, which overtakes concern for others made in God’s image.6 By grace, God’s plan for salvation through faith alone frees humanity from self-exaltation’s snare.
Paul’s rhetorical argument challenged his original audience to offer a law that people could keep or work they could do to earn justification. No such law or work exists, not even in the realm of religion. What is more, Paul had already recalled Jewish unfaithfulness to God’s law.7 Paul further proved his assertion that justification by faith excludes boasting by asking: “Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith.” If justification required law-keeping, our inherent inability to perform perfectly would lead to failure, not boasting.8
Religious pride tempted many Jews of Jesus’s day to demand God’s approval and claim their pious efforts made them worthy of justification. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus contrasted the prayers of a tax collector and a pharisee to confront such religious pride. The Pharisee boasted, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.” Meanwhile, the tax collector humbly admitted he was a sinner needing God’s mercy.9 The Pharisee did not grasp that all people are under sin’s power and unable to justify themselves through keeping the law.10 But the tax collector received forgiveness and salvation through faith in God’s mercy, displayed in the temple sacrifices that foreshadowed Jesus’s death.
Approximately 2,000 years of human advancement have not cured prideful attempts to create systems of religious laws or good works about which people can boast. Pride resists complete reliance on God for salvation. Consequently, people still long to redefine goodness according to socially acceptable and achievable standards rather than God’s superior righteousness. Even perfect adherence to flawed systems of morality or religion that human beings create offers no reason to boast. Successfully meeting manmade standards does not earn God’s approval. Instead, celebrating religious success highlights self-promotion and prideful tendencies, tarnishing otherwise good works.
The good works of studying the Bible and serving others can lead to either prideful boasting or a closer relationship with Jesus. Paul, a former Pharisee trained by the esteemed Gamaliel and perhaps the brightest Christian theologian of his day, resolved to “boast in the Lord.”11 He boasted of Christ crucified and raised to life, rather than human wisdom or his own knowledge. Faith rises from knowledge of the gospel and God’s redemptive plan. Even so, mere knowledge is not the same as saving faith.
Paul maintained the gloriously simple truth “that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” This truth invites readers of Paul’s day and ours to joyfully and humbly receive God’s gracious justification. Unfortunately, prideful tendencies often tempt us to turn faith into a work about which we can boast. Rather than accepting saving faith as a gift we cannot earn, we can turn belief into a rule we must follow—a perceived mandate that promises earthly honor and heavenly rewards. Manufactured, frail faith, however, inevitably leads to shame when it fails to withstand difficult circumstances. The faith we create ourselves is not real and cannot save.
In contrast, biblical faith is God’s instrument of our salvation, not a reason for boasting. We are not justified because of our faith or on account of our faith. The Bible says we are justified by faith or through faith. Faith is the God-given channel by which God’s righteousness in Christ becomes ours. God is at work in and through us. Faith unites a person to the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness. We are saved by the perfect life, work, death, and resurrection of the Lord. Jesus’s appearance on our behalf in the presence of God saves us. His righteousness, credited to us by God, saves us. The righteousness we receive is entirely Christ’s. Salvation by grace through faith undercuts all boasting of any personal effort to achieve faith, if that were even possible.12
Faith in the glorious truths about Jesus exalts Him and eclipses human pride. Jesus alone was sent from heaven to show God’s love by dying to save all who would believe.13 Only faith in Jesus’s words and saving work moves condemned people from death to life.14 Jesus is the only light powerful enough to scatter sin’s darkness.15 Jesus, the resurrected Lord of all, alone has the power to save.16 By faith alone in Jesus—who is gloriously worthy of our boasts—are sinful people justified before a holy God.
Faith Alone
Justification by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ is the only true gospel. Christ’s righteousness becomes our own through faith, which is God’s gift.1 God-given faith makes belief possible for fallen people with fractured minds and broken lives.2 True faith propels people to act on their belief. God’s gift of faith exceeds mere intellectual understanding or mental agreement with the Bible or theology; even demons believe this way.3 A person can know that Jesus lived, died on the cross, and rose from the dead. However, saving faith requires a heart that acknowledges and surrenders to Christ as Savior.4 The gift of faith enables us to receive the truth about Jesus5 into our minds and allow its transformative root in our hearts.6 By God’s power, the roots of saving faith persevere through hardship and temptation.
The gospel Paul proclaimed7 clearly presents Jesus as the object of saving faith that results in justification and righteousness. God freely offered Jesus as the atoning sacrifice for humanity’s redemption. People actively receive God’s gift of faith by affirming Jesus Christ as God’s Son and their Savior. True faith incorporates belief that Jesus died for our sin, was raised from the dead for our justification, and ascended to heaven, exalted to reign with God. Such faith brings us into a community of faith, connecting us with others seeking to walk with God. Believers confidently anticipate that Jesus will return to vanquish evil forever and complete all He has promised. As faith grows, Jesus becomes the central object of our loving devotion and ruler of our lives.8
Without faith in Jesus, people can outwardly identify as Christians without experiencing the transforming effects of Christ’s reign on their hearts, minds, and behavior. Faith in Jesus as risen Lord demands humble surrender, not self-exaltation. When we continue treating Jesus like He needs our help to save us, we tragically pursue rituals and good deeds to prove we are worthy of God’s favor and affection. This ignores the saving truth the Bible proclaims.
Believing that faith is the only way to receive Jesus’s righteousness as our own frees us from competing for a position in God’s kingdom or trying to prove our worth. Faith in God’s love for us shatters self-rule, inviting us into the safety of surrendering our lives to the one who controls everything in creation. Jesus’s perfect saving work and God’s endless grace secure our eternity and reorder today’s priorities. We live for Jesus—who died for us—and delight in serving those He loves and seeks to save through faith alone.
1. God’s gift of faith: Ephesians 2:8-9
2. Fallen people: Romans 3:10-18
3. Demons believe: James 2:19
4. Confess and believe: Romans 10:9
5. Truth about Jesus: Matthew 16:16; John 1:12; 3:16; Acts 4:12
6. Truth takes root: Matthew 13:3-8, 13-23
7. Paul’s gospel: Romans 3
8. Surrender to Jesus: Matthew 11:28-30; Luke 9:23; 14:25-27; Acts 3:19; 20:21; Romans 12:1-2
Faith Necessary for All – Romans 3:29-30
Justification by faith denies every attempt to consider ourselves superior to others. Paul’s next questions confronted bigotry and invited humble unity among Roman believers in Paul’s day and among Christians today. While boasting leads to alienation from God and one another, justification by grace through faith leads to reconciliation. God invites all people to access justification by faith alone.17
Paul asked the Roman church, “Is God the God of Jews only?” Some erroneously believed so. The Jewish nation owed their existence to the loving favor God showed their ancestor Abraham.18 As God promised, Abraham’s descendants grew into a large nation who were called to serve the one true God and to be a light to the peoples around them.19 The Shema reflects their monotheistic belief: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”20 While the Israelites did not remain faithful to their calling, their monotheism separated them from their polytheistic neighbors, who did not acknowledge the one true God. While believing foreigners such as Ruth and Rahab21 joined God’s people, many Jews failed to understand that God’s affection toward non-Jews was for the good of the world, ultimately through Jesus.22
Jewish devotion to the law of the one true God meant that some in the early Church struggled to understand how Gentiles could become part of God’s people without fully adhering to the Mosaic code. Insistence on adherence risked creating division within the body of Christ. Jews believed Gentiles’ only hope of salvation was in becoming Jewish and following Jewish law and customs. If following Jewish law was the only path to justification, their exclusivity and boasting would be appropriate. Instead, God’s grace abundantly flows to all people equally entrapped by sin. God affirmed justification by faith apart from the Jewish law when He also freely gave His Spirit to believing Gentiles.23 Consequently, early church leaders released believing Gentiles from circumcision and conversion to Judaism.24
Paul followed his question in verse 29 with another question and immediate answer, “Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too.” Through faith in Jesus Christ, all people can be redeemed from sin and reconciled to God. God graciously revealed His eternal power and divine nature25 to all people through His creation. Additionally, God revealed His holiness and sovereignty through Israel’s law and history. Through faith in Jesus, Gentiles, like Jews, are liberated from degrading idolatry and invited into fellowship with their creator, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.26
To both Jew and Gentile Paul declared, “There is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.” The one true God is equally God of all the people He has created.27 God offers salvation on the same terms to both Gentiles and Jews: justification by His grace through faith. God’s impartial character and inexhaustible righteousness undergird a believer's call to proclaim the gospel to all peoples worldwide.
The gospel of the one true, living God refuses confinement to any one sect or nation. Jesus’s death secured one justification for all who believe—from every nation, tribe, and tongue. Because of sin, regardless of good works or evil actions, understanding or lack of understanding, we are all equally disadvantaged before our holy God. Through God-given faith, the gospel offers the whole world access to the same hope.
Faith Upholds Law – Romans 3:31
In chapter 3, Paul twice repeated that salvation by grace is apart from the law.28 Did his original readers question the law’s role for Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus Christ? Did they wonder if God’s grace set the law aside or if God had changed His mind about moral standards? Paul asked and answered a question on his readers’ behalf: “Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.” Justification by grace through faith upholds the law of God. Romans 6–8 will make the point that through the Spirit believers are empowered to do what God calls us to do.
Paul was beginning to address an erroneous belief system called “antinomianism,” which he addresses in greater detail in Romans 5 and 6. Some forms of antinomianism include the belief that since salvation through faith in Jesus is for the soul, people can use their bodies as they desire. In other words, behavior makes no difference for those who believe in Christ. This belief system also proposes that the Holy Spirit’s teaching and God’s grace render God’s law irrelevant; nothing matters but the law of love, as people define it. These false beliefs dishonor God, denying His good purposes in His law and gracious salvation through faith.
God, the creator of everything, gave the law to teach Israel how to live as God’s people in God’s world, promoting relational flourishing with Him and with one another.29 Jesus affirmed the ongoing value of God’s law by summing up the whole law in the two Greatest Commandments.30 The first is, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” The second is, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Even though people cannot perfectly keep the law, the gospel of Jesus Christ does not void God’s law.
Jesus explicitly stated, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”31 Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection perfectly fulfilled the law’s requirements, making faith in Jesus the only way sinful people can truly satisfy the law’s demands.32 God’s salvation plan through Jesus fulfills the law in two crucial areas: justice and righteousness.
Justification by grace through faith upholds the law’s demand for justice. According to the law, sin’s penalty is death.33 By offering Jesus as a sacrifice for sin, God honored what His law required. Jesus suffered the law’s just penalty in our place. God bases salvation on what Jesus’s death accomplished rather than what we can or cannot do. Jesus eternally satisfied sin’s penalty for those who look to Him in faith.34 In this costly way, God upheld the law and provided the way to save sinners. Jesus’s sacrifice for atonement demonstrates God’s righteousness in punishing sin. God is “just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”35
Justification by grace through faith upholds the law’s demand for authentic righteousness. True righteousness fulfills the law at every point. The law reflects God’s perfect holiness, making it impossible for sinners to fulfill. But Jesus, eternally God from the beginning and “fully human in every way,”36 lived without sin, perfectly fulfilling the law for us.37 Through faith, God credits the actual, unchanging, perfect righteousness of Jesus to every believer’s account. God justifies people through faith in Christ alone.
Take to Heart
God’s wise and perfect plan for justification by faith alone secures all glory and honor for Jesus Christ—who accomplished salvation for all who believe. Jesus’s perfect life, death, and resurrection make available God’s perfect righteousness, which we could never achieve ourselves. Access to this righteousness by faith apart from works abolishes pride’s self-exalting drive, freeing people from the burden of boasting to prove their worth to God and others. Faith alone invites the whole world to experience the justification only God can provide through Christ, regardless of their background, heritage, or spiritual knowledge.
While God’s law reveals His plan for holy living in His world, no one can be justified by keeping the law. The law remains a blessing to God’s people, but salvation only comes through faith. Saving faith is not an ideal or goal we labor to achieve. Instead, God graciously gives saving faith that transforms undeserving sinners into saints. God-given faith strengthens believers to endure life’s trials and eternally unites them with Christ. Justification by grace through faith alone reveals God’s deep compassion for all people who are equally unable to justify themselves.
Look at me. Notice me. Value me. Love me. These real human desires can draw us to our Creator, who continuously sees us, perfectly knows us, and passionately loves us. Jesus’s precious blood, shed for sinners and received by faith alone, proves God’s merciful, loving nature and determination to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. What a liberating truth in a world where recreational scrolling through social media channels fuels constant competition for attention and affirmation! How are you tempted to boast about yourself to others? What prideful self-promotion overflows into your relationship with God? Do your prayers echo a sense of entitlement to God’s blessings? Perhaps you take credit for your spiritual accomplishments when you see others struggling to stay on the straight and narrow. Because God loves us, He has ensured that our salvation does not depend on us. Your justification, or God’s not-guilty verdict, depends completely on Jesus’s power to live perfectly and love completely. Justification by faith alone frees us to embrace joy and humble gratitude for God’s love and Christ’s sacrifice. Do you believe this truth? If so, how has faith in Jesus granted you freedom to let go of this world’s self-oriented focus and fully cling to Him?
As faith causes truth about Jesus to take root in our hearts, we are transformed. The Holy Spirit sensitizes us to the impacts of immorality in and around us. We recognize humanity’s deep need for Jesus. Paul has taught us that even those who reject the one true God have a sense of right and wrong stamped on their consciences.38 When obeyed, God’s law and moral standards protect us from sin’s brutal consequences. How have you experienced the protective effects of God’s law in your own life? We often regret the avoidable consequences of sin we face. How might you increasingly surrender in faith to Jesus, the Lord and Savior who molds your values, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors to His own?
Religious observances and communities of faith offer tangible touchpoints that connect people with shared values and expectations. However, we can wrongly view human expectations as requirements needed to earn God’s love, favor, and even justification. What works do you believe God requires you to add to faith in Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection as your source of your salvation? People who work hard expect others to work hard. What expectations do you have of others that might limit their access to Jesus or your willingness to share the good news of salvation? Works-based righteousness creates unbearable burdens for us and uncrossable barriers for others. When we believe someone is too sinful for Jesus to justify or too wicked to join our church, we forget that the grace we have received is for the benefit of the whole world. How might Paul’s message about the one God and His one way of justification through faith impact how you view God and others this week? With whom will you share the good news of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone?
1. Examples of pride: Romans 1:22-23; 2:1, 23
2. Eve’s prideful desire: Genesis 3:5
3. King’s boast: Isaiah 14:13-15
4. Satan’s fall: Luke 10:18
5. Self above God: Psalm 10:4
6. God’s image-bearers: Genesis 1:26
7. Jewish unfaithfulness: Romans 3:1-4
8. Law-keeping: Galatians 3:24
9. Jesus confronted pride: Luke 18:9-14
10. All under sin: Romans 3:9-18
11. Paul’s boast: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
12. Boasting in Christ: 1 Corinthians 1:28-31; Ephesians 2:8-10
13. Jesus lifted up: John 3:13-17; 20:31
14. Jesus brings life: John 11:25; 14:6
15. Jesus the light: John 12:46
16. Faith’s profession: Romans 10:9
17. God’s invitation: 1 Timothy 2:3-4
18. Loving favor: Deuteronomy 10:15
19. One true God: Genesis 12:1-9; Exodus 20:1-6
20. Lord is one: Deuteronomy 6:4
21. Foreigners included: Matthew 1:1-16
22. Chosen to bless: Isaiah 42
23. Holy Spirit to Gentiles: Acts 10:44-46; 15:1-10
24. Gentiles and law: Acts 15:11-29
25. God revealed: Romans 1:19-20
26. Gentiles welcome: Acts 17:22-31
27. God of all: Romans 2:11-12
28. Apart from law: Romans 3:21, 28
29. Law a guide: Psalm 119
30. Greatest Commandments: Matthew 22:36-40
31. Jesus fulfills law: Matthew 5:17-20
32. Believe in Jesus: John 6:29
33. Sin’s penalty: Romans 6:23
34. Eternally effective: Hebrews 5:8-9; 9:11-12
35. God is just: Romans 3:25-26
36. Jesus’s nature: John 1:1; Hebrews 2:17; 4:15
37. Sinless life: 2 Corinthians 5:21
38. Moral conscience: Romans 2
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