Romans 3:20 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Therefore by the deeds of the law,’ – by obedience to what the law demands – ‘there shall no flesh be justified.’ He uses the future tense because it has never happened, and it will never happen. This not because the law cannot justify, but because it cannot justify sinners. It cannot justify those who break even one of its commandments; it can only justify those who keep it perfectly. We have a duty to do what the law says, but it is impossible to accomplish this successfully, because of our sinfulness. So we will never get close to God that way. We could never keep the law well enough. We can keep it in parts; we can keep it at some times, but viewed as a whole, we are dreadful failures, and we are proved to be sinners against God. The law was given not because God thought we could keep it, and find our way back to him from our fallen state, but it was given to show us our need and to drive us to the free provision that he has made for us in Christ Jesus. ‘Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight.’ When you read that word, ‘justified’, it effectively means this: declared righteous by God. It's almost as though this is a law court, and you want the outcome to be that you are not guilty, shown to be free from the offense you are accused of, declared righteous. The declaration of righteousness by God, it's the most wonderful thing, the most liberating thing. If we can be declared righteous, not because of what some man or some woman thinks, but by God's clear statement – ‘that man, that woman, I declare to be righteous’ – that is a tremendous thing. That is what it means in the Bible to be justified. Declared righteous, declared acceptable to God. Yes, but how is that going to happen, because we are not righteous? Ah, but that is the work of Christ. He came from heaven to earth. He became man, the God-man. According to his plan, he allowed himself to be arrested and taken by wicked hands and slain on the cross of Calvary. As he suffered and died there, God the Father laid upon him all the terrible guilt, the almost infinite weight of guilt of those of us who would ever be saved from our sin, and the Father punished him instead of us. In six terrible hours, a punishment unseen, unknown by us, descended from heaven upon Christ. It was the full equivalent punishment that all saved people should have borne eternally for their sin. He took it away so that God could look upon us and declare us righteous, acceptable, and deem us righteous on account of what Christ had done. He has paid the price, and we go free. ‘For by the law is the knowledge of sin.’ The law teaches about sin not in itself; in itself it obviously teaches about righteousness, and it urges righteousness in all who are under it. But it teaches us about sin in ourselves, as we try to keep its standards and fail. It sets the will of God before us, and the more we become serious about keeping the law, the more clearly we see sin in our hearts. This knowledge comes especially to those who see how extensive is the law, and how it applies to every part of our being.