If you were with us last night studying Romans 3:21-26 I imagine you will have struggled not to enjoy reflecting on how good God's good news really is. After all we get so much out of it! All we do is put our trust in Jesus and God declares sinners like us to be righteous by setting us free from the prison of sin through Jesus' death on the cross which successfully satisfied God's wrath against us. Here we are, hopeless sinners and God does all this for us!
It's a good thing to be happy about God's amazing solution for us. Not least because it's a solution which so perfectly fits the otherwise unbeatable problem of sin which Paul has been showing to be unbeatable for two whole chapters by this point.
But let me suggest that there's much, much more than that to be happy about, if we look beyond what the gospel does for us and see what it does for God. Because God is all over this good news:
- It's all God's work - he's the one who put his own Son forward as the solution, by his will and his initiative, quite apart from any contribution that any of us have made, and more than that, it's in the face of the appalling way in which we've treated God.
- And it all works to show how great God is, because he is both the just and the justifier, he makes us righteous in a righteous way, and in so doing he reveals just how glorious he is both in his grace and in his perfect justice.
It would be well worth taking a few moments to reflect on how the splendour of God revealed in the gospel should change our view of him and our attitude to the gospel. Here are some questions that might help with that:
- How does the fact that God's solution is perfectly just help me to trust in his gospel?
- How should I feel about God for going to such lengths to come up with such a flawless solution?
- What can I do to make my attitude to the gospel less me-centred and more God-centred?
