How Christ Died for God – the Cross Reveals God’s Universality & Confirms God’s Law

Romans 3:29-31

29 Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, 30 since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.  31 Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.

(Verse 29-30) - Pagan religions almost invariably have many gods. Frequently there is a supreme god who is more powerful than the rest, but he shares with them a common form of “deity.”

The fundamental truth of Judaism, however, has always been “The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” (Deut. 6:4). That truth is repeated in one form or another throughout the Old Testament. Through His prophet Isaiah, God Himself declared, “I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God” (Isa. 45:5). There is only one God, the Creator, Sustainer, and Lord of the entire universe. There are no “lesser gods,” only false gods that have been created by man’s imagination and often are demonically inspired and empowered.  This is what we mean when we speak of the universality of God.  The is only one God – and He is the God of all men.

Yet despite the central truth of their faith that there is only one God, many Jews in biblical times believed that Gentiles somehow were outside the domain of “their” God. Instead of considering themselves as belonging to God, they virtually considered God as belonging only to them.

Jonah resisted going to Nineveh not because he thought his witness might fail but because he feared it would succeed. He confessed to the Lord, “Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore, in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that Thou art a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness” (Jonah 4:2). He tried to flee to Tarshish because he knew his preaching might cause the pagan Ninevites to trust in God and become acceptable to Him. He confessed, in effect, that although he knew he belonged to God and was His servant, he did not want to be like God in His love and grace.

From their own Scripture the Jews knew that many Gentiles had found favor with God. They knew that Rahab, not only a pagan Gentile but also a prostitute, found favor with God. They knew that Ruth, a Moabitess, was the great-grandmother of David, their greatest king. They knew that the prophet Elisha graciously volunteered to heal Naaman, a captain in the army of Syria, of his leprosy. Yet many Jews persisted in their deep prejudice against, and often hatred of, Gentiles.

Probably having had such prejudice and hatred himself before his conversion, Paul anticipated the question many Jews would ask in regard to justification by faith. He therefore asked rhetorically, Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? The obvious answer, even for a prejudiced Jew would have to be, Yes, of Gentiles also. If there is only one God, then He had to be the God of Gentiles as well as of Jews. If there is only one God, He has to be the God of everyone.  The Jews supposed that he was the God of their nation only, that they only were to be admitted to his favor. In these verses Paul showed that as all had alike sinned, Jews and Gentiles; and as the plan of salvation by faith was adapted to sinners, without any special reference to Jews; so God could show favors to all, and all might be admitted on the same terms to the benefits of the plan of salvation.

As far as men’s religions are concerned, there are, of course, many “so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords,” Paul says; “yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him” (1 Cor. 8:5-6).

Seeing it is one God. - This assigns the reason why God must be the God of Gentiles as well as of Jews. If He justifies both in the same way, He must be equally the God of both. In the previous part of the discussion, Paul had shown that by works of law no flesh shall be justified, proving it first respecting Gentiles, and afterwards respecting Jews. Now he affirms that God’s method of justifying man applies equally to Jews and Gentiles. This confirms his doctrine respecting the ruin of all men by sin, and of there being only one way of recovery by the righteousness of God received through faith. To urge this was likewise of great importance, with a view to establish the kingdom of Christ in all the earth, (Romans 10:11, 13). Having thus reduced the whole human race to the same level, it follows that all distinction among them must be from God, and not from themselves, - all standing on the same footing with respect to their works. There is but one God, and so but one way of becoming His people, which is by faith.

Having established that the Jews had God’s law given through Moses, that the Gentiles had His law written on their hearts and consciences (2:11-15), and that there is only one true God, Paul makes his argument irrefutable: It is the same God, there is but one, and his plan is equally suited to Jews and Gentiles.  The God who will justify the circumcised, that is, Jews, by faith and the uncircumcised, that is, Gentiles, through faith is one Just as there is only one God, there is only one way of salvation-faith in Jesus Christ.  There is no difference in the meaning of these expressions. Both denote that faith is the instrumental cause of justification, or acceptance with God.

By faith, and through faith. - It is difficult to see why the prepositions here are varied. Similar variations, however, occur in other places, where there appears to be no difference of meaning, as in Galatians 2:16, where justification, as applied to the same persons, is spoken of in the same sense, “knowing that a man is not justified by works of law, but through the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ.”

In his letter to Timothy, Paul reminded his young protégé, “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:3-6).

Just as all men are equally condemned by God for their sin (Rom. 3:19), they are equally offered God’s gracious salvation through faith in His Son. As the apostle declared near the opening of the letter, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek [the Gentile]” (Rom. 1:16).

As Paul later demonstrates in this letter, salvation by faith has always been the only way of salvation, under the covenant of Moses and before that even for their first and greatest patriarch, Abraham (4:1-3). Hebrews 11 makes clear that God’s way of salvation by faith alone extended back to the Fall, when the need for salvation began.

The Cross Confirms God’s Law

The next question Paul knew his readers would ask was, Do we then nullify the Law through faith? “If men have never been saved on any other basis than faith in God,” they would argue, “then the law not only is useless now but was always useless.”  Paul is asking: “Do we render it vain and useless, of no effect; do we destroy its moral obligation; and do we prevent obedience to it, by the doctrine of justification by faith?” This was an objection which would naturally be made; and which has thousands of times been since made, that the doctrine of justification by faith tends to licentiousness. The word “law” here, I understand as referring to the moral law, and not merely to the Old Testament. This is evident from Rom. 3:20-21, where the apostle shows that no man could be justified by deeds of law, by conformity with the moral law. 

Again Paul responds with the powerful repudiation, May it never be! (see 3:4, 6). “A thousand times no,” is the idea. This is an explicit denial of any such tendency.  The cross of Jesus Christ, through which justification by faith was made possible, not only does not nullify the Law but confirms it. On the contrary, Paul says, we establish the Law.  That is, by the doctrine of justification by faith; by this scheme of treating people as righteous, the moral law is confirmed, its obligation is enforced, obedience to it is secured. This is done in the following manner:

(1) God showed respect to it, in being unwilling to pardon sinners without an atonement. He showed that it could not be violated with impunity; that He was resolved to fulfill its threatenings.

(2) Jesus Christ came to magnify it, and to make it honorable. He showed respect to it in his life; and he died to show that God was determined to inflict its penalty.

(3) The plan of justification by faith leads to an observance of the Law. The sinner sees the evil of transgression. He sees the respect which God has shown to the Law. He gives his heart to God, and yields himself to obey his Law. All the sentiments that arise from the conviction of sin; that flow from gratitude for mercies; that spring from love to God; all his views of the sacredness of the Law, prompt him to yield obedience to it. The fact that Christ endured such sufferings to show the evil of violating the Law, is one of the strongest motives prompting to obedience. We do not easily and readily repeat what overwhelms our best friends in calamity; and we are brought to hate what inflicted such woes on the Savior’s soul. The sentiment recorded by Watts is as true as it is beautiful:

“’Twas for my sins my dearest Lord.
Hung on the cursed tree.
And groan’d away his dying life,
For thee, my soul, for thee.
“O how I hate those lusts of mine.
That crucified my Lord;
Those sins that pierc’d and nail’d his flesh.
Fast to the fatal wood.
“Yes, my Redeemer, they shall die,
My heart hath so decreed;
Nor will I spare the guilty things.
That made my Saviour bleed.”

This is an advantage in moral influence which no cold, abstract law always has over the human mind. And one of the chief glories of the plan of salvation is that while it justifies the sinner, it brings a new set of influences from heaven, more tender and mighty than can be drawn from any other source, to produce obedience to the Law of God.

(This is indeed a beautiful and just view of the moral influence of the gospel, and especially of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. It may be questioned, however, whether the apostle in this place refers chiefly, or even at all, to the sanctifying tendency of his doctrine. This he does very fully in the 6th chapter of Romans; and therefore, if another and consistent sense can be found, we need not resort to the supposition that he now anticipates what he intended, in a subsequent part of his epistle, more fully to discuss. In what other way, then, does the apostle’s doctrine establish the Law? How does he vindicate himself from the charge of making it void? In the preceding chapter he had pointed out the true ground of pardon in the “righteousness of God.” He had explained that none could be justified but they who had by faith received it. “Do we then,” he asks in conclusion,” make void the Law by maintaining thus, that no sinner can be accepted who does not receive a righteousness commensurate with all its demands?.” “Yea, we establish the law,” is the obvious answer. Jesus has died to satisfy its claims, and lives to honor its precepts. Thus, he hath brought in “righteousness,” which, being imputed to them that believe, forms such a ground of pardon and acceptance, as the Law cannot challenge.

As far as salvation is concerned, the gospel does not replace the law because the law was never a means of salvation. The law was given to show men the perfect standards of God’s righteousness and to show that those standards are impossible to meet in man’s own power. The purpose of the law was to drive men to faith in God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus declared God’s perfect standards to be higher even than those of the Old Covenant. A person breaks God’s law, He said, not only by killing but even by hating (Matt. 5:21-22), not only by committing adultery but by having lustful thoughts (5:27-28). If it is impossible to fulfill perfectly the Mosaic law, how much more impossible is it to keep the standards set forth by Christ in His earthly ministry.

The cross establishes, or confirms, the law in three ways. First, it establishes the law by paying the penalty of death, which the law demanded for failing to fulfill perfectly and completely its righteous requirements. When Jesus said that He had come not to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill them (Matt. 5:17), He was speaking not only of His sinless earthly life but of His sin-bearing death.

Second, the cross establishes the law by fulfilling its purpose of driving men to faith in Jesus Christ. Paul had already declared that “by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified” (3:20). “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point,” James says, “he has become guilty of all” (James 2:10). “The Law has become our tutor,” Paul told the Galatians, “to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith” (Gal. 3:24).

Third, the cross establishes the law by providing believers the potential for fulfilling it. “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirements of the Law might be fulfilled in us” (Rom. 8:3-4).