Sermons on Romans 3:21
The various sermons below converge sharply: Romans 3:21 is read as the pivot where the indictment of human failure gives way to a uniquely revealed, divine righteousness that is received, not earned. Each writer insists the righteousness is “apart from the law,” is publicly bestowed on sinners by God (not merely private pardon), and is accessed by faith that looks to Christ’s substitutionary, propitiatory work. Common pastoral moves follow from that core—shifting pastoral focus from self‑justifying effort to grateful reception, pressing assurance, and ethical imitation of Christ—while individual preachers add memorable emphases (a performance‑record metaphor that recasts justification as a transferred résumé; careful lexical/historical attention to the salvific “now”; a portrayal of faith as the relational instrument that embraces Christ; and even a nativity-imagery application that links incarnation, propitiation, and communion).
Where the sermons diverge is revealing for sermon planning: some press the forensic, public‑status language—justification as imputation and standing before God—while others press the existential and liturgical consequences, making “but now” a present protest and daily appropriation. One strand reads the verse through rigorous lexical and redemptive‑historical lenses (fulfillment of OT types and a theologically precise “now”), another emphasizes the instrumental function of faith as the receptive means, and a different pastoral angle seizes seasonal imagery and sacramental application. The preacher must therefore choose whether to accent the courtroom declaration and doctrinal clarity, the existential appropriation and assurance, the OT–NT continuity and participatory glory, or the congregational/liturgical response—each choice shapes sermon structure, illustrations, and invitations to faith, leaving the congregation with either a doctrine to believe, an action to receive, or a worshiping response to embody...
Romans 3:21 Interpretation:
Free Justification: Embracing God's Gift of Righteousness(Gospel in Life) reads Romans 3:21 as the hinge of the gospel: a Divine righteousness arrives "apart from the law" and functions not merely as forgiveness but as a positive, publicly-bestowed status that ends the human struggle for validation; Keller develops a sustained metaphor of "righteousness" as a validating performance record (resume, academic transcript, gold stars) and stresses that Paul uses the same Greek concept for "righteousness" and "justified," so the verse announces God’s bestowal of Christ’s perfect performance-record onto believers, replacing all human attempts at self-justification and thereby shifting ethics from self-validation to grateful, unselfish imitation of Christ.
God's Righteousness Revealed: Grace Through Faith in Christ(David Guzik) interprets Romans 3:21 as the pivotal "but now" announcement that the fatal diagnosis of sin (Romans 1–3) meets an enacted remedy in Christ; Guzik emphasizes the revealed character of God's righteousness (manifested, not manufactured) and offers linguistic and functional notes — distinguishing "apart from the law" (not by human earning) and insisting the righteousness comes "through/ by faith in Jesus Christ," with attention to how faith functions as the relational instrument that looks back to Christ's substitutionary, propitiatory work on the cross.
God's Righteousness: A Gift Through Faith in Christ(MLJ Trust) (Dr. Martyn Lloyd‑Jones) treats Romans 3:21 as the declaration that with Christ’s arrival a historic new age has opened: the verse announces a revealed, divine righteousness that the Old Testament types and sacrifices foreshadowed, and Lloyd‑Jones insists on a careful lexical/historical reading (the word "now" signals actual redemptive-historical change) and a theological correction — this righteousness is given, not earned, and is not merely removal of penalty but clothing the sinner with Christ’s righteousness.
From Condemnation to Salvation: The Power of 'But Now'(MLJ Trust) focuses the interpretation of Romans 3:21 on the transforming force of the two small words "but now": Lloyd‑Jones treats them as both theological pivot and existential test — the verse announces a present, historical intervention that overturns law-based condemnation, and he repeatedly urges readers to appropriate "but now" personally (faith as a protest and appropriation) so that the revealed righteousness ceases to be abstract doctrine and becomes existential assurance.
Silent Night: The Gift of Redeeming Grace(North Annville Bible Church) reads Romans 3:21–25 through the lens of Christmas: the "righteousness of God apart from the law" is the Redeeming Grace manifested in the incarnation and cross, and the sermon applies the verse by pairing the revealed righteousness with the carol "Silent Night" (the carol’s origin and "radiant beams from Thy holy face" image), arguing that the poem/song dramatizes the dawn of redeeming grace — God’s public provision of righteousness through Christ’s sacrificial blood (propitiation) given to sinners who trust.
Romans 3:21 Theological Themes:
Free Justification: Embracing God's Gift of Righteousness(Gospel in Life) develops the distinct theological theme that justification is not primarily negative (forgiveness) but positive (a bestowed status with rights, privileges, and access to God): Keller argues justification is like being given a validating record or a medal — it grants entrance and standing, and thus demolishes all grounds for boasting by transferring the ground of worth from human performance to Christ’s finished obedience.
God's Righteousness Revealed: Grace Through Faith in Christ(David Guzik) highlights the theological nuance that "through faith" should be understood as an instrumental connective (faith as the means by which the objectively-given righteousness is received) and argues the verse insists on a single, non-discriminatory way of salvation — faith in Christ — thereby undercutting any notion of partial or plural salvific paths and reinforcing the unity of God’s plan to justify both Jew and Gentile.
God's Righteousness: A Gift Through Faith in Christ(MLJ Trust) insists on an often-neglected theological test: the New Testament gospel must be presented as the fulfillment of the Old Testament; Lloyd‑Jones stresses that justification by faith actually establishes and vindicates the law (it does not abolish it), and he frames justification as imputation/clothing with Christ’s righteousness that also initiates participation in the "glory of God" (partaking of divine life), not merely pardon.
From Condemnation to Salvation: The Power of 'But Now'(MLJ Trust) brings out the theological theme of faith as a defiant, present-tense protest against condemnation: "but now" theology makes faith into an active repudiation of law‑based despair and positions Christian assurance as the lived effect of God’s historical intervention — faith is portrayed as the believer’s uprising against the accusations of law, conscience, and Satan.
Silent Night: The Gift of Redeeming Grace(North Annville Bible Church) emphasizes redeeming grace as the decisive theological theme: Christ’s incarnation and propitiatory death publicly satisfy God’s justice so that sinners can be justified as a free gift; the sermon frames Christmas as the dawn of the modality by which God supplies righteousness to sinners (gift, not achievement), and connects communion to this theme (Christ’s body/blood as memorial and guarantee).
Romans 3:21 Historical and Contextual Insights:
God's Righteousness: A Gift Through Faith in Christ(MLJ Trust) supplies extensive biblical‑historical context: Lloyd‑Jones insists "but now" signals an eschatological/historical turning — the coming of the Son inaugurates the new age; he demonstrates how the law (ceremonial sacrifices, Levitical system) and the prophets (Messianic psalms, Isaiah, Daniel, Zechariah) prefigured and witnessed to the righteousness finally manifested in Christ, and he warns against modern demythologizing (e.g., Bultmann) that severs NT claims from their historic events.
From Condemnation to Salvation: The Power of 'But Now'(MLJ Trust) situates Romans 3:21 in ministry and evangelistic history: Lloyd‑Jones explains how the Puritan "law‑work" (conviction by law before gospel) follows Paul’s pattern, shows that the church historically kept Old and New Testaments together (early church and Scripture canonization), and repeatedly stresses the historicity of Jesus' life, death, resurrection as the factual basis for the "now" — not merely ethical teaching but events that change redemptive history.
God's Righteousness Revealed: Grace Through Faith in Christ(David Guzik) points to Old Testament continuity as contextual background: Guzik emphasizes that Paul’s claim ("being witnessed by the law and the prophets") places Romans 3:21 squarely within the covenantal story — the OT anticipated a righteousness coming apart from human law‑keeping — and he situates the verse amid Paul’s prior forensic diagnosis (Romans 1–3) so that the "revelation" answers specific Jewish and Gentile misunderstandings about law, merit, and Messiah.
Romans 3:21 Cross-References in the Bible:
Free Justification: Embracing God's Gift of Righteousness(Gospel in Life) ties Romans 3:21 into multiple Pauline and biblical cross‑references: Keller repeatedly connects the verse to the surrounding cluster (Romans 3:22–28 and chapter 4), to Romans 1–2's indictment of conscience and law, appeals to 2 Corinthians 5:21 ("God made him who knew no sin to be sin... that we might become the righteousness of God in him") to support the idea that Christ's performance is imputed to believers, and uses Paul's "where then is boasting?" motif to show how justification by faith excludes personal boasting; each citation is used to show justification is forensic imputation, universal in offer, and transformative in ethics.
God's Righteousness Revealed: Grace Through Faith in Christ(David Guzik) groups and explains OT and NT cross‑references he uses: he reads Romans 3:21 against Romans 3:20 (law only reveals sin), ties the declaration to Romans 3:22–24 (justification by grace through faith), highlights Psalm/prophetic anticipations (law and prophets witnessing to what is revealed), and then explicates verse 25’s propitiation language by linking to John’s uses of "propitiation" and the sacrificial atonement imagery — all to show the continuity between OT sacrificial typology and NT fulfillment in Christ.
God's Righteousness: A Gift Through Faith in Christ(MLJ Trust) adduces a wide array of biblical cross‑references as proof-texts and context: Lloyd‑Jones points to Genesis 15:6 (Abraham justified by faith) to show faith’s perennial function, Levitical sacrificial material and Psalm 22 as types foreshadowing Christ, Luke 24 (post‑resurrection Jesus explaining OT scriptures "concerning himself"), Romans 5 (Adam’s federal headship and our sin), 2 Corinthians (participation in Christ's glory), and other Pauline passages to argue that Romans 3:21 is the New Testament unfolding of OT promise — the law and prophets witness to a righteousness now manifested in Christ.
From Condemnation to Salvation: The Power of 'But Now'(MLJ Trust) collects Paul’s prior forensic claims and the Old Testament witness to show continuity: Lloyd‑Jones repeatedly references Romans 1–3 (the indictment/silencing of all before God), the function of the law as "schoolmaster" to Christ, and points forward to chapter 4 (Abraham as paradigm) — he uses these links to show the verse is the theological turning point that moves the argument from universal guilt to God’s provision.
Silent Night: The Gift of Redeeming Grace(North Annville Bible Church) grounds Romans 3:21 in its immediate paragraph and in other New Testament passages: the sermon connects 3:21–25 to verse 24 ("being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus"), cites John 3's lifting‑up-of‑the‑Son language (the Son must be lifted up), and 1 Peter 1:18–19 on redemption "not with perishable things but with the precious blood of Christ," using these passages to show that the manifested righteousness is applied by faith because Christ’s sacrificial blood satisfies divine justice and redeems sinners.
Romans 3:21 Christian References outside the Bible:
Free Justification: Embracing God's Gift of Righteousness(Gospel in Life) explicitly appeals to historical Christian writers and documents when unpacking Romans 3:21: Keller quotes Richard Hooker ("let it be counted as folly or frenzy... that God has made himself our sin and we have been made his righteousness"), cites C. S. Lewis’s sense that Christianity's moral paradoxes could not be invented (to back up the view that only divine revelation could yield such doctrine), and appeals to the Belgic Confession’s Reformation formula that justifying faith works within believers — he uses these sources to illustrate classical theological formulations of imputation, the paradoxical ethics of grace, and pastoral implications for Christian living.
God's Righteousness: A Gift Through Faith in Christ(MLJ Trust) and "From Condemnation to Salvation: The Power of 'But Now'"(MLJ Trust) both invoke notable theological figures and movements in their exegesis: Lloyd‑Jones names and critiques Rudolf Bultmann’s demythologizing program (as a modern attempt to dissociate gospel claims from historical facts), appeals to Augustine’s observation about the latent presence of the gospel in the Old Testament, and in the "But Now" sermon he cites literary or theological voices (Browning’s image of “faith” and references to Martin Luther and the Puritans' law‑work method) to support the claim that Romans 3:21 announces historically‑rooted revelation and that evangelical method must begin with law‑conviction before gospel‑offer.
Silent Night: The Gift of Redeeming Grace(North Annville Bible Church) cites modern evangelical teachers in its treatment of Romans 3:21: the sermon draws on Donald Grey Barnhouse’s pastoral emphasis (Barnhouse’s anecdote about drawing a heart over the passage) and quotes commentators (Leon Morris calling Romans 3:21–24 among the most important paragraphs in Scripture) to underline the centrality and pastoral urgency of the doctrine of justification by grace manifest in Christ.
Romans 3:21 Illustrations from Secular Sources:
Free Justification: Embracing God's Gift of Righteousness(Gospel in Life) uses a string of vivid secular and cultural illustrations to make Romans 3:21 concrete: Keller compares righteousness to a resume or academic transcript (validating performance records that open doors), uses Chariots of Fire’s runner declaring "I have 10 seconds to justify my existence" and film figure Sydney Pollack’s statement that finishing a film "earns my stay" to show people seek external validation; he recounts a secular writer and parents who justify life by their children, and cites a secular columnist near York railway who read Romans 14:12 and reflected on needing to justify existence — Keller uses these real-world stories to demonstrate universality of the quest for righteousness and to dramatize the gospel’s countercultural promise.
God's Righteousness Revealed: Grace Through Faith in Christ(David Guzik) employs secular metaphors and everyday analogies to illuminate Romans 3:21: Guzik pictures the preacher as a doctor who diagnoses fatal disease (sin) and then announces the cure ("but now"), and opens the sermon with large cultural metaphors (Yankee Stadium, Mount Everest, Carnegie Hall) to convey the thrill and gravity of the text; he also uses the gold‑star refrigerator chart and school reward imagery as a secular analogue for human merit‑based religion versus the gift character of God’s righteousness.
God's Righteousness: A Gift Through Faith in Christ(MLJ Trust) and "From Condemnation to Salvation: The Power of 'But Now'"(MLJ Trust) draw on literary and cultural imagery: Lloyd‑Jones uses the familiar household "star chart" and parental discipline imagery to illustrate the human merit mentality, and in "But Now" he quotes Robert Browning’s poetic simile ("faith means unbelief kept quiet like the snake Neath Michael's foot") as a literary/secular image to describe faith’s dynamic against doubt; he also refers to historical‑cultural movements (demythologizing) as a secular intellectual context that threatens to strip the gospel of its historical claims.
Silent Night: The Gift of Redeeming Grace(North Annville Bible Church) grounds Romans 3:21 in a detailed secular‑historical illustration: the sermon narrates the origin and spread of the carol "Silent Night" — the organ broken on Christmas Eve in Oberndorf, Joseph Mohr retrieving a poem he wrote two years earlier, Franz Gruber composing a guitar melody in two hours, the first midnight performance, the organ‑repairman carrying the song to other towns, its subsequent adoption (King William IV’s cathedral choir, transport to Trinity Church NY, singing during Civil War truces), and later recognition as the most recorded song; the pastor uses that concrete cultural history (a simple artistic answer to a practical need) to analogize how God’s simple, gracious provision in Christ unexpectedly spreads and becomes the world’s enduring comfort, connecting the carol’s "radiant beams" imagery to the "dawn of redeeming grace" in Romans 3:21–25.