https://youtu.be/61J01iSyMU0
In our verse-by-verse study of Romans last time we finished Rom 3:27; with the Expanded Translation: "Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what principle? That of works? Absolutely not: but by the principle of law of faith."
We noted that God found a way through imputation to bless us when we were in spiritual death on the basis of His integrity without compromising His perfect essence.
God's justification by imputation excludes all human boasting because it is from God alone on the basis of grace alone.
God did not do this from sentimentality or emotional attraction to pleasant human personality. Man often concludes from his self-righteous arrogance that he has done something to please God, or has made God fall in love with him but that is a lie.
Under the law or principle of works man strives for a status that he thinks will make him attractive or pleasing to God. This striving of self-righteousness eliminates the principle of faith and grace because it rejects God's perfect integrity.
The provision that God's integrity uses is a grace provision that is compatible only with God's essence.
Man's self-righteousness is a function of the law or principle of works (works righteousness) that produces human boasting blasphemes God's perfect integrity.
The issue is God's integrity. God found a way to bless man from His justice without compromising any of the attributes of His essence. Justification by faith is an action of God's integrity whereby God is free to provide eternal salvation from the source of His justice.
The grace principle of justification by faith eliminates any boasting because it excludes all self-righteousness. The entire system of human works that became operative from the garden is rejected. Boasting erroneously assumes God's approbation for some system of human activity.
But according to the law of faith God only loves His own perfect righteousness and He does not love human good works because they are evil. God loves His plan, not man's plan.
Response to God's plan and entrance into a relationship with God is based exclusively on His integrity, and at the point of faith in Jesus Christ we have our initial adjustment to God's justice.
In relationship to God the principle of the law of works is evil, it is a satanic alternative that was presented to man in the garden as the alternate to perfect environment from God.
What has been referred to, as the dispensation of innocence in the Garden of Eden is really not that at all, it was direct blessing from God's integrity that was totally related to God and His creation and completely separated from man's merit and ability.
Man's works were not involved at all and there were certain things he just didn't have to know at the time. He didn't have to know anything about evil, or about human good and evil.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was forbidden because in his creation relationship with God's integrity God only gave man the information that he needed.
In the perfect environment of the garden the only thing man had to know about good and evil was to stay away it. Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the mandate from God's integrity.
As long as man obeyed that command he had a relationship with God's integrity based on creation. Once man rejected that command and ate the fruit from the tree he no longer had the creation relationship with God's integrity.
Perfect environment is not the solution to anything. A relationship with God's integrity is the solution to everything and we can have that right now in the devil's evil world on the basis of grace through the law of faith.
In the Garden the law of works was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Under the law of works good and evil are synonymous terms so human good is evil.
The law of works implies that man by man's talents, self-righteousness, good deeds, and personality improvement, advances God's integrity. But man cannot advance God's integrity; only God can advance His own integrity.
Only God's justice can do the work. God's justice judged the sins of the human race when Christ was bearing them on the cross. We can only respond in a non-meritorious way on the basis of the law or principle of faith by believing in Jesus Christ.
God's justice provides temporal and eternal blessing for the believer with maximum doctrine resident in the soul. It is always God's integrity doing the work. Boasting and self-righteousness are excluded because man's works are completely excluded.
Through maximum adjustment to God's justice the believer can glorify God by deploying God's resources by the application of God's Word of truth under the ministry of the Holy Spirit but the believer cannot do anything related to God on his own.
Rom 3:28; "For we maintain that man is justified by faith" the Greek word translated " maintain" in the NASB is the present middle indicative of the verb "logizomai" (reckon).
In Classical Greek the "logizomai" means an act of thought according to strict logical rules. In commerce and business it was used in the sense of crediting something to one's account.
In the Attic Greek, men such as Plato used the word for non-emotional thinking that parallels the idea of logical thinking. Logical thinking excludes emotion.
In his speeches Demosthenes used this verb to express the concept of facts as they are. In this verse it means to conclude logically or to rationally determine.
We will translate it, "We conclude." The present tense is a customary present referring to what habitually occurs when the doctrine of divine integrity is combined with the doctrine of propitiation to form a logical conclusion.
The middle voice is an indirect middle emphasizing the agent, the believer with maximum doctrine in the soul producing the action. The indicative mood is declarative for an unqualified assertion of fact.
Along with the postpositive conjunctive particle "gar" (for) that is used as an inferential conjunction that is used in the case of a self-evident conclusion "We conclude then."
Plus the accusative singular of general reference from the noun "anthropos" (man). The accusative of general reference is the subject of the infinitive and we have a present passive infinitive of "dikaioo" (justified) that means to have God's imputed righteousness that results in being qualified for blessing from God's justice.
This is a customary present tense that denotes what habitually occurs when a person makes instant adjustment to God's justice for salvation by believing in Jesus Christ.
The passive voice: man receives the action of the verb at the point of faith in Christ. This is the infinitive of actual result. Plus the instrumental singular of "pistis" (faith), used here is the active sense of believing-"We conclude, then, that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law" There is no definite article with "nomos" (law) so it refers to any law that requires compliance.
The adverb "chois" (apart or without) is used as an improper preposition, plus the genitive plural of "ergon" (works), "apart from works." Plus the possessive genitive singular of "nomos" (law). It was the Mosaic Law that was being used to produce self-righteousness at that time.
Expanded Translation Rom 3:28; "We conclude, then, that man is justified by faith apart from works of law."
Justification is the judicial act of God whereby He recognizes His own righteousness, even when it is given to a spiritually dead person who believes in Jesus Christ.
Justification is God's recognition of imputed righteousness at the moment of faith in Christ. Justification by faith means salvation adjustment to God's justice of God by faith in Christ alone.
God imputes His righteousness that is instant adjustment to God's justice the moment anyone believes in Jesus Christ.
God's justice immediately imputes one half of God's integrity, namely God's righteousness; and it is credited to our account totally apart from human works.
Having received God's righteousness from God's justice the believer is born again spiritually and pronounced righteous, vindicated, and justified.
The principle of faith excludes all works of any law. The works of law represent any system of salvation by works. Salvation by works cannot provide instant adjustment to God's justice.
There are at least seven categories of salvation by works that are being practiced at the present time.