Scripture reading: Jeremiah 31:31-34.

Sermon text: Romans 3:19-28.

“Guilty.” This word strikes terror into the heart of a defendant on trial; fear into the mind of a child caught breaking the rules; and absolute horror to every person who dies without restoring his relationship with his Creator. A guilty verdict always brings judgment on the condemned, followed by a punishment determined by the authority who hands down the verdict.

Any cursory study of history will prove that every civilization, every tribe, every group of humans saw death as some sort of punishment. I believe this common characteristic of humanity serves as one of the greatest proofs of our immortality. Something in us, in spite of all the physical evidence we experience daily, tells us that we were not created to die. Something within us knows it will live after death and will face a reckoning for our works in this life.

God, Our Creator, had placed a Tree of Life in the Garden with Adam and Eve, but He also placed a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God gave Adam and Eve only one prohibition: “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17).

Guess which tree provided the first meal in the Bible? We’ve lived with the consequences ever since.

One result of this guilty act carried throughout every civilization. All human societies, at some point, believed that a living sacrifice would pay the penalty for our wrongs in this life. If the guilty could provide the right sacrifice, the Judge on the other side of death would stay the just verdict and show mercy instead.

Unfortunately, these sacrifices failed to pay the true price for our wrongs. For one thing, humans may have performed the sacrifices, but no system could fix the heart of the problem. In his letter to the Romans, written c. 57, St. Paul addressed the major problem every human has ever faced: “all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one’” (Romans 3:9-12). Our pride and selfishness continually rises within us to lead us away from “righteousness,” or “right living.” We’re constantly finding ourselves wanting to do better, or wanting to avoid the mistakes and sins we commit. Yet, we constantly find ourselves needing a means of obtaining forgiveness from God for our sins.

God had provided humanity with a standard of right living in the Mosaic Law, even commanding the Hebrews to whom He gave it to serve as a “a kingdom of priests” who would serve as an example to the nations of the world. Moses told the Hebrews, “See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people’” (Deuteronomy 4:5-6).

The Hebrews soon fell into the same issue that befell every other people who tried to establish some sort of sacrificial system: Ritual. The Hebrews soon replaced the relationship with God with a series of rituals that seemed to guarantee forgiveness of sin if only the worshiper performed the ritual correctly.

Here’s the issue we face. We all want to do something that will guarantee success with God, but we all ultimately fall into the trap of believing that God restores our relationship because of what we’ve done. I call this a “trap” because when we think this way, we tend to elevate ourselves and believe God owes us forgiveness because of what we’ve done.

The reality is different. In today’s sermon passage, St. Paul wrote that “works” cannot “justify” us before God. We can do nothing to earn God’s favor; we can do nothing on our own to give us right standing before Him. No ritualistic system, no magical formula, can assure us of God’s favor. A mere ritualistic following of Moses’ system couldn’t provide the guarantee.

Jeremiah had already received a word from God regarding the Hebrews’ failure to guard against ritual. The Scripture reading from Jeremiah spoke of a “new covenant” that God would write “on their hearts” rather than on tablets of stone as He had done with the Mosaic Law. With the new covenant, God would fix the major problem of humanity, the tendency to try to fix things ourselves.

St. Paul pointed out that Moses’ Law didn’t remove the major issue. Instead, the Mosaic Law brought “knowledge of sin” to everyone. We can claim innocence by ignorance if we don’t know the rules, but we lost that slim chance when God gave His Law to Moses. Humanity may have claimed, “We don’t know God’s expectations.” God removed that excuse on Mt. Sinai. The Hebrews knew God’s expectations, as did the other nations who read the Law. Yet, they continued to fall short of God’s expectations and even defy them outright.

Our own lives provide all the proof we need of St. Paul’s accusation: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” None of us can claim innocence before God. We all need some way of making things right with our Creator before our deaths. We all will stand guilty before Him unless He gives us a means of obtaining innocence.

St. Paul clearly believed we would never accomplish our own innocence, even if we tried. The standard of God simply stands too high for us to reach. We can’t accuse God of setting too high a standard; God cannot lower the standard. We were created by a holy God, a God who cannot tolerate sin because He Himself is perfect. Asking God to tolerate your sin does as much good as asking me to breathe in a vacuum.

St. Paul, however, also understood that God Himself had provided the means for us to receive mercy before God. Jesus, the divine Son of God, had come into the world and perfectly fulfilled the Mosaic Law. Jesus then died in a Roman crucifixion and was buried in a borrowed tomb in Jerusalem. Three days later, on the event Christians celebrate each Sunday (and especially on Easter), Jesus rose from the dead, bringing victory over the penalty of our sins.

If all fall short of the glory of God, all can be “justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” Jesus’ blood became our “propitiation,” or means of atonement before God. Every civilization believed that blood sacrifices alone could provide some sort of payment for sins, but only Jesus’ blood could completely atone for our sins.

Through Jesus, we receive the “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” We cannot live in God’s righteousness on our own, but Jesus lived in God’s righteousness in His life. Jesus becomes our “substitute.” Everyone who accepts Jesus’ substitute before God receives mercy.

God serves as the “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” God, the ultimate Judge of all humanity, “justifies” us, or declares us worthy to stand before Him. We cannot earn this worthiness; God gives it to us solely by His grace, His undeserved merit.

If we receive God’s forgiveness only by His grace, “what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.” We cannot boast of our own works if our works cannot accomplish our forgiveness or justification before God. Instead, if a “law of works” does not give us any hope, we receive this hope “but by the law of faith.” As St. Paul wrote, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”

This “grace through faith” really bothers most people. We really want to believe we can make God owe us something; we really want to act as if we’ve done something so good that God finds Himself in our debt. Scripture and experience both clearly state otherwise. If God demands complete obedience and perfection, nothing we can do will erase the stain of our sins before Him.

Perhaps you find yourself uncomfortable with this fact. Perhaps you want to believe that you can put God in your debt by doing good things, behaving the best you can, or even working harder in the Church. Trust me that you’re in good company. Almost everyone wants to think he can do something to earn God’s favor. No one can.

This realization drove a man nearly crazy in the sixteenth century. The Roman Catholic Church in that time had tried to guarantee salvation and God’s forgiveness with a series of works. The man whose acts we celebrate today, Martin Luther, realized through his own studies of the books of Romans and Galatians that the series of works the Church had established could never attain salvation. Even worse, in the abuses of Catholicism had devised something called an “indulgence,” which most people perceived as a “pass” to sin. Anyone who purchased an indulgence was supposedly assured of God’s forgiveness for their sins. The Catholic Church used indulgences extensively to raise money.

Martin Luther himself had suffered in this system. Luther’s sins and guilt had plagued him almost to the point of madness. Luther spent hours trying to confess every sin, trying to achieve salvation by the system. Luther’s spiritual advisor, Johann von Staupitz, finally told Luther, “Look here, Brother Martin. If you’re going to confess so much, why don’t you go do something worth confessing? Kill your mother or father! Commit adultery! Quit coming in here with such flummery and fake sins!” (George, pp. 64-65). Staupitz then pointed Luther to the only thing that could save him: “The wounds of Jesus, to the cross of Christ” (George, p. 65).

Finally, Luther realized the truth: That only by grace would God forgive our sins and give us the right to stand before Him. Luther realized that no human system could bring us salvation; no human acts could insure our forgiveness. Only by believing in Jesus and accepting His sacrifice could we receive forgiveness.

This realization freed Luther from his anguish over his sins. Luther realized that God’s grace applied to all who believed in Jesus, confessing Him as Lord of their lives and believing in His resurrection.

On 31 October 1517, Martin Luther attacked the abusive Roman Catholic system of indulgences by nailing a series of statements, the 95 Theses, on the castle door in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther’s actions led to a rediscovery of St. Paul’s teachings on God’s grace: That we receive His grace only through faith, believing that Jesus died for us.

What about works? Must we do anything for salvation?

Christians never denigrate good works; we believe every Christian must love God and then love everyone around us, as Jesus clearly taught us (Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27-37). However, we believe our good works show Jesus’ presence in our lives, not that we’re trying to influence God to love us or give us a “pass” on our sins.

Today, we understand that while our sins demand God’s justice, God doesn’t seek to judge us. God’s love compelled Him to provide for our forgiveness through Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection. Jesus said this about God’s love: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17).

God’s grace will extend to you, too, if you accept Jesus’ sacrifice. St. Paul told the Romans, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

You’ll stand before God one day. You’ll hear either, “Guilty!” or “Forgiven.” Everyone who stands in Jesus’ righteousness other than his own will hear God proclaim, “Forgiven.” Do you want to hear God’s forgiveness? You can. Do you want to know God loves you? “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). You don’t have to earn God’s love. God showed His love in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Accept the love of God by believing in Jesus, His Son. You, too, will find the peace and joy that comes with all who come to God through faith.

Source for Luther: Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1988.