Romans 3:25-26 Commentary – The Blood, the Propitiation, and the Justice of God
Romans VerseQuest Commentary Essay 22: The Blood, the Propitiation, and the Justice of God Text: Romans 3:25–26
Romans 3:25–26 says, “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” If Romans 3:21–24 was the courtroom door opening with “But now,” Romans 3:25–26 tells you how God can open that door without compromising His throne. This is not sentimental religion. This is not God patting sinners on the head and saying, “Nobody’s perfect.” This is not heaven running an emotional support ministry for Adam’s ruined race. This is propitiation. This is blood. This is righteousness declared. This is God showing how He can forgive sinners and still remain just. If a man wants soft religion, he should not stop in Romans 3. This passage is not soft. It is Calvary explained from God’s side.
The modern religious world likes a cross that comforts man but does not satisfy God. It wants a cross as an example of love, a symbol of sacrifice, a dramatic moral lesson, a social justice statement, a tragedy of empire, or a religious decoration to hang around a neck. Paul will have none of that bloodless nonsense. He says Christ was “set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” Not through faith in His example only. Not through faith in His teaching only. Not through faith in His martyrdom only. Not through faith in a wafer, water, works, religious membership, or a priestly system. Through faith in His blood. The blood is not a primitive embarrassment to be scrubbed out by liberal professors and polished preachers with delicate stomachs. The blood is the God-appointed ground of propitiation. Without the blood, Christianity becomes moralism with stained glass.
Romans 3:25–26 answers the question every honest sinner should be asking by now: how can a holy God justify the ungodly? God has already revealed wrath against sin. He has already stopped every mouth. He has already declared all the world guilty before Him. He has already said no flesh will be justified by the deeds of the law. So how can God forgive without becoming unjust? How can He pardon without pretending sin is small? How can He justify the believer without turning His courtroom into a corrupt backroom deal? Paul’s answer is Jesus Christ set forth as the propitiation through faith in His blood. Calvary satisfies God before it comforts man. The sinner receives peace because God’s righteousness has first been declared. The blood does not merely make the sinner feel forgiven. It gives God the righteous basis to justify him that believeth in Jesus.
Chapter One: God Set Forth His Son
Romans 3:25 begins, “Whom God hath set forth.” The “whom” is Jesus Christ from verse 24, the One in whom redemption is found. Notice who does the setting forth. God does. Man did not invent Calvary. Rome did not create redemption. A priesthood did not manufacture atonement. A church council did not vote the blood into power. God set forth His Son. That means the cross was not an accident, not an emergency adjustment, and not a tragic failure turned into a religious memory. It was God’s public display of His own answer to sin. Acts 2:23 says Christ was delivered “by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” Men crucified Him with wicked hands, but God had already ordained the Lamb.
That phrase “set forth” carries a public character. God did not hide the answer in a corner. Christ was lifted up openly. His blood was shed publicly. The crucifixion was outside the gate, before Jews, Gentiles, priests, soldiers, mockers, thieves, and heaven itself. The Son of God was set forth before the universe as God’s appointed propitiation. This is why the gospel is not a secret ritual performed behind a veil by religious specialists. It is a public proclamation: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again. The sinner is not told to crawl through an institutional maze hoping to find grace dripping from a sacramental pipe. He is told to look to the One God set forth.
God setting forth Christ also means God’s salvation begins in God’s initiative. Fallen man did not climb up and demand a propitiation. Man was too busy sinning, lying, excusing, idolizing, accusing, and boasting. God set forth Christ. The offended God provided the sacrifice. The holy God supplied the blood. The Judge gave the Redeemer. That is grace with righteousness in it. The sinner does not persuade God to be merciful by tears, vows, candles, beads, penance, confession booths, baptismal water, or moral improvement. God has already set forth His Son. The question is not whether God has provided a sufficient propitiation. The question is whether the sinner will believe in Jesus.
Chapter Two: Christ Is the Propitiation
Paul says God set forth Christ “to be a propitiation.” That word is heavy. It means a satisfaction, an appeasement of wrath, a Godward answer to divine justice. Propitiation is not man calming himself down. It is not religious therapy. It is not a sinner forgiving himself in a mirror while soft music plays. It is Christ satisfying the righteous claims of God against sin. God’s wrath is real. God’s holiness is real. God’s judgment is real. Therefore the atonement must deal with Godward righteousness before it can deliver manward comfort. A gospel that does not satisfy God cannot save man.
This is where bloodless Christianity falls apart. If sin is merely ignorance, then teaching is enough. If sin is merely sickness, then therapy is enough. If sin is merely social disorder, then reform is enough. If sin is merely low self-esteem, then affirmation is enough. But if sin is rebellion against a holy God under righteous wrath, then nothing short of propitiation will do. Modern religion has tried to turn God into a harmless grandfather and Christ into a moral example. But Romans 3 gives you a holy God, guilty sinners, and Christ as the propitiation. That is not a sermonette for a religious coffee shop. That is the heart of substitutionary blood atonement.
Propitiation also destroys the lie that God simply forgives by overlooking sin. God does not forgive by acting like sin never happened. He forgives because sin was judged in Christ. The wrath due to the sinner was answered at Calvary. The sword of justice fell on the Substitute. Isaiah 53 says, “the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Second Corinthians 5:21 says, “he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.” First Peter 3:18 says, “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” That is propitiation. The Just One suffers for the unjust so God can save the unjust justly.
Chapter Three: Through Faith in His Blood
Paul does not merely say Christ is a propitiation. He says “through faith in his blood.” That phrase is hated by devils, modernists, liberals, ritualists, and every religious system that wants salvation without the offence of blood. The blood is not incidental. It is not poetic symbolism only. It is not a primitive metaphor that sophisticated Christians should outgrow. The Bible says, “faith in his blood.” Leviticus 17:11 says, “it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” Hebrews 9:22 says, “without shedding of blood is no remission.” Revelation 1:5 says Christ “washed us from our sins in his own blood.” A man who wants a bloodless gospel wants a Christless gospel, whether he has enough sense to admit it or not.
Faith in His blood is not faith in human suffering generally. It is not faith in religious emotion stirred up by looking at a crucifix. It is not faith in the mass, where Rome pretends to continue or re-present what Hebrews says was done once. It is not faith in sacramental handling of Christ by a priest. It is faith in His blood. The sinner rests on the shed blood of Jesus Christ as God’s appointed satisfaction for sin. Faith does not add value to the blood. Faith receives what God says about the blood. The power is not in the intensity of the sinner’s faith; the power is in the blood of Christ. A trembling hand can receive a strong Saviour.
The blood also keeps salvation objective. Feelings change. Religious moods change. Church attendance changes. Personal victory rises and falls. The sinner’s tears dry up. His promises weaken. His memory fades. But the blood stands. God saw the blood in Exodus 12 and passed over. He did not say, “When I see your sincerity.” He did not say, “When I see your improvement.” He did not say, “When I see your religious résumé.” He said, “When I see the blood.” That is the ground of peace. The believer’s assurance does not rest in looking inward at his emotional temperature. It rests in looking outward and upward to the blood God accepts. Faith in His blood is the end of religious guessing.
Chapter Four: To Declare His Righteousness
Paul says this propitiation through faith in His blood is “to declare his righteousness.” Calvary is a declaration. It declares that God is righteous. That is not how modern man usually thinks of the cross. He thinks the cross declares love, and it does. Romans 5:8 says God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. But Romans 3 says the cross declares righteousness. Before Calvary is man’s comfort, it is God’s vindication. God’s justice had to be declared. God’s holiness had to be upheld. God’s treatment of sin had to be shown to be righteous. The blood of Christ does that.
Why did God’s righteousness need to be declared? Because God had passed over sins before the cross in view of the coming sacrifice. Old Testament saints were forgiven, but the full payment was not yet historically accomplished. God was forbearing. He was not ignoring sin. He was not unjustly sweeping it away. He was looking forward to the blood of Christ. The sacrifices under the law pointed forward, but Hebrews 10:4 says, “it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” Those sacrifices were shadows. Christ is the substance. Calvary declares that God was righteous in His forbearance because the true payment has now been made.
This is a glorious and sobering truth. God’s righteousness is not compromised by mercy. It is declared in mercy because mercy comes through blood. God does not have to choose between being loving and being just. He is both. The cross does not make God less righteous so He can forgive. It reveals His righteousness in forgiving through Christ. Every sin God remitted before the cross, every believer God justified after the cross, every guilty sinner God saves now, all of it is righteous because of the propitiation in the blood of Jesus Christ. Calvary is God saying to heaven, earth, and hell: sin has been judged, righteousness has been declared, and grace has a righteous foundation.
Chapter Five: For the Remission of Sins That Are Past
Romans 3:25 says, “for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.” This phrase must not be handled carelessly. It does not mean a Church Age believer is only forgiven of sins committed before his personal conversion and then left to maintain salvation by works after that. That is a favorite ditch for people who cannot read Romans without dragging a chain behind them. The context is not a saved man losing forgiveness for future sins. The context is God’s righteousness in passing over sins committed before the historical death of Christ, through His forbearance. Paul is explaining how God could remit sins before Calvary while remaining righteous. The answer is that Christ’s blood was the appointed satisfaction toward which all true remission pointed.
The Old Testament believer was not saved by animal blood as though a goat could redeem a soul. He was saved on the basis of God’s grace through faith in the revelation given, with the blood of Christ as the ultimate ground of redemption. The sacrifices looked forward. The priesthood ministered under shadows. The mercy seat spoke of propitiation. The Day of Atonement preached substitution in picture form. But the real answer was Christ. God’s forbearance held back immediate full judgment, not because sin was small, but because the Lamb of God would come and bear sin. John the Baptist did not say, “Behold the sacramental system.” He said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
This also magnifies the unity and progression of Scripture. God has never been casual about sin. He was not lenient in the Old Testament and strict in the New. He was forbearing in view of Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ reaches in its value across the whole program of redemption. The Old Testament saint looked forward through shadows. The Church Age believer looks back to the finished work. The Tribulation saint will still be saved on the basis of Christ’s blood, though his doctrinal setting and tests are not identical to the Body of Christ. The ground is Christ, not human merit. The remission of sins past through God’s forbearance is not God forgetting justice; it is God waiting for the cross that would declare His justice.
Chapter Six: At This Time His Righteousness
Romans 3:26 says, “To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness.” Paul repeats the purpose because it matters. “At this time” points to the present manifestation of God’s righteousness through the completed work of Christ. The cross has now happened. The blood has been shed. The resurrection has declared Christ to be the Son of God with power. The righteousness of God is now manifested without the law. This is not shadow anymore. This is not promise only. This is not type only. This is the historical accomplishment and apostolic proclamation of redemption in Christ Jesus.
Paul’s “at this time” is especially important in a Pauline epistle. God is now revealing the righteousness of God in the gospel with full clarity. The law and prophets witnessed it, but now it is manifested. Christ has been set forth. Propitiation has been made. Justification is preached through faith in His blood. The believer in this present dispensation does not wait for a priest to offer another sacrifice. He does not stand at an altar hoping the blood of bulls and goats will cover him another year. He stands in the finished work of Christ. Hebrews 10:12 says, “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.” A seated Saviour means the sacrifice is complete.
“At this time” also rebukes every religious system that wants to keep sinners in the shadows after the substance has come. Rome’s mass is a shadow machine pretending to handle the substance. Legalism drags men back to Sinai after Calvary has spoken. Ritualism keeps men busy with outward forms after God has set forth Christ. Liberalism removes the blood and leaves men with ethics. Modern evangelical softness often mentions the cross but drains it of propitiation, wrath, justice, and blood until it becomes a motivational symbol. Paul says God has declared His righteousness at this time. The time for shadows as the ground of approach is over. Christ has died. The blood has been shed. God has spoken.
Chapter Seven: Just and the Justifier
Here is the summit: “that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” This is one of the greatest statements in the Bible. God is just, and God justifies. Not one at the expense of the other. Both. He does not justify by becoming unjust. He does not remain just by refusing to justify. He is just and the justifier because Christ is the propitiation through faith in His blood. That is the answer to the whole problem of sin. If God justified sinners without payment, He would be unjust. If God judged all sinners without mercy, He would be just, but no sinner would be saved. At Calvary, God’s justice and grace meet in the blood of Christ.
This destroys the idea that justification is legal fiction. God does not pretend believers are righteous while ignoring the real problem. He justifies on the basis of Christ’s redemption. The believer is in Christ. The blood has answered sin. The righteousness of God is imputed to the believer by faith. God’s declaration is not make-believe; it is grounded in the finished work of His Son. The Judge is not bribed. The law is not ignored. Sin is not minimized. The Substitute has satisfied justice, and therefore God can justify the ungodly who believes in Jesus. That is why Romans 4:5 will be able to say God “justifieth the ungodly.” The ungodly believer is justified because Christ took the judgment.
The condition is stated plainly: “him which believeth in Jesus.” Not him which worketh. Not him which performeth. Not him which taketh sacraments. Not him which joineth Rome. Not him which keepeth Moses. Not him which endureth religious probation. Him which believeth in Jesus. Faith receives Christ. Faith rests in His blood. Faith abandons self-righteousness. Faith agrees with God that the sinner is guilty and Christ is sufficient. The God who is just becomes the justifier of that believer. That is salvation without boasting, grace without compromise, righteousness without law-works, and forgiveness without injustice. That is the gospel.
Conclusion
Romans 3:25–26 explains how God can save sinners without compromising His righteousness. Christ was set forth by God as a propitiation through faith in His blood. The cross declares God’s righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through His forbearance, and it declares at this time His righteousness so that He might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. That is the Godward foundation of justification. Calvary satisfies God before it comforts man. The sinner can have peace because God’s justice has been answered.
This passage defends the blood atonement against every bloodless counterfeit. Liberal theology may be embarrassed by the blood. Modern religion may reduce the cross to moral influence. Rome may bury the finished work under a repeated sacramental system. Legalism may try to add human merit. Sentimental Christianity may talk about love while avoiding wrath and propitiation. But Romans 3 stands like a stone wall: propitiation through faith in His blood. Without the blood, there is no remission. Without propitiation, there is no righteous justification. Without Christ set forth by God, there is no salvation. A bloodless gospel is no gospel at all.
So let the passage stand in all its glory. God is just. God is the justifier. The sinner believes in Jesus. The blood answers sin. Righteousness is declared. Grace is established on a righteous foundation. The believer does not need to wonder whether God lowered the standard to save him. God did not lower it. Christ met it. The believer does not need to fear that his forgiveness is built on divine sentiment. It is built on blood. He does not need to crawl to a priest, return to Moses, trust a ceremony, or polish his flesh. He believes in Jesus Christ, whose blood is the propitiation, whose redemption is sufficient, and whose finished work allows God to justify the ungodly while remaining perfectly, eternally, gloriously just.
Romans 3:25-26 Commentary – The Blood, the Propitiation, and the Justice of God
Romans VerseQuest Commentary
Essay 22: The Blood, the Propitiation, and the Justice of God
Text: Romans 3:25–26
Romans 3:25–26 says, “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” If Romans 3:21–24 was the courtroom door opening with “But now,” Romans 3:25–26 tells you how God can open that door without compromising His throne. This is not sentimental religion. This is not God patting sinners on the head and saying, “Nobody’s perfect.” This is not heaven running an emotional support ministry for Adam’s ruined race. This is propitiation. This is blood. This is righteousness declared. This is God showing how He can forgive sinners and still remain just. If a man wants soft religion, he should not stop in Romans 3. This passage is not soft. It is Calvary explained from God’s side.
The modern religious world likes a cross that comforts man but does not satisfy God. It wants a cross as an example of love, a symbol of sacrifice, a dramatic moral lesson, a social justice statement, a tragedy of empire, or a religious decoration to hang around a neck. Paul will have none of that bloodless nonsense. He says Christ was “set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” Not through faith in His example only. Not through faith in His teaching only. Not through faith in His martyrdom only. Not through faith in a wafer, water, works, religious membership, or a priestly system. Through faith in His blood. The blood is not a primitive embarrassment to be scrubbed out by liberal professors and polished preachers with delicate stomachs. The blood is the God-appointed ground of propitiation. Without the blood, Christianity becomes moralism with stained glass.
Romans 3:25–26 answers the question every honest sinner should be asking by now: how can a holy God justify the ungodly? God has already revealed wrath against sin. He has already stopped every mouth. He has already declared all the world guilty before Him. He has already said no flesh will be justified by the deeds of the law. So how can God forgive without becoming unjust? How can He pardon without pretending sin is small? How can He justify the believer without turning His courtroom into a corrupt backroom deal? Paul’s answer is Jesus Christ set forth as the propitiation through faith in His blood. Calvary satisfies God before it comforts man. The sinner receives peace because God’s righteousness has first been declared. The blood does not merely make the sinner feel forgiven. It gives God the righteous basis to justify him that believeth in Jesus.
Chapter One: God Set Forth His Son
Romans 3:25 begins, “Whom God hath set forth.” The “whom” is Jesus Christ from verse 24, the One in whom redemption is found. Notice who does the setting forth. God does. Man did not invent Calvary. Rome did not create redemption. A priesthood did not manufacture atonement. A church council did not vote the blood into power. God set forth His Son. That means the cross was not an accident, not an emergency adjustment, and not a tragic failure turned into a religious memory. It was God’s public display of His own answer to sin. Acts 2:23 says Christ was delivered “by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” Men crucified Him with wicked hands, but God had already ordained the Lamb.
That phrase “set forth” carries a public character. God did not hide the answer in a corner. Christ was lifted up openly. His blood was shed publicly. The crucifixion was outside the gate, before Jews, Gentiles, priests, soldiers, mockers, thieves, and heaven itself. The Son of God was set forth before the universe as God’s appointed propitiation. This is why the gospel is not a secret ritual performed behind a veil by religious specialists. It is a public proclamation: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again. The sinner is not told to crawl through an institutional maze hoping to find grace dripping from a sacramental pipe. He is told to look to the One God set forth.
God setting forth Christ also means God’s salvation begins in God’s initiative. Fallen man did not climb up and demand a propitiation. Man was too busy sinning, lying, excusing, idolizing, accusing, and boasting. God set forth Christ. The offended God provided the sacrifice. The holy God supplied the blood. The Judge gave the Redeemer. That is grace with righteousness in it. The sinner does not persuade God to be merciful by tears, vows, candles, beads, penance, confession booths, baptismal water, or moral improvement. God has already set forth His Son. The question is not whether God has provided a sufficient propitiation. The question is whether the sinner will believe in Jesus.
Chapter Two: Christ Is the Propitiation
Paul says God set forth Christ “to be a propitiation.” That word is heavy. It means a satisfaction, an appeasement of wrath, a Godward answer to divine justice. Propitiation is not man calming himself down. It is not religious therapy. It is not a sinner forgiving himself in a mirror while soft music plays. It is Christ satisfying the righteous claims of God against sin. God’s wrath is real. God’s holiness is real. God’s judgment is real. Therefore the atonement must deal with Godward righteousness before it can deliver manward comfort. A gospel that does not satisfy God cannot save man.
This is where bloodless Christianity falls apart. If sin is merely ignorance, then teaching is enough. If sin is merely sickness, then therapy is enough. If sin is merely social disorder, then reform is enough. If sin is merely low self-esteem, then affirmation is enough. But if sin is rebellion against a holy God under righteous wrath, then nothing short of propitiation will do. Modern religion has tried to turn God into a harmless grandfather and Christ into a moral example. But Romans 3 gives you a holy God, guilty sinners, and Christ as the propitiation. That is not a sermonette for a religious coffee shop. That is the heart of substitutionary blood atonement.
Propitiation also destroys the lie that God simply forgives by overlooking sin. God does not forgive by acting like sin never happened. He forgives because sin was judged in Christ. The wrath due to the sinner was answered at Calvary. The sword of justice fell on the Substitute. Isaiah 53 says, “the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Second Corinthians 5:21 says, “he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.” First Peter 3:18 says, “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” That is propitiation. The Just One suffers for the unjust so God can save the unjust justly.
Chapter Three: Through Faith in His Blood
Paul does not merely say Christ is a propitiation. He says “through faith in his blood.” That phrase is hated by devils, modernists, liberals, ritualists, and every religious system that wants salvation without the offence of blood. The blood is not incidental. It is not poetic symbolism only. It is not a primitive metaphor that sophisticated Christians should outgrow. The Bible says, “faith in his blood.” Leviticus 17:11 says, “it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” Hebrews 9:22 says, “without shedding of blood is no remission.” Revelation 1:5 says Christ “washed us from our sins in his own blood.” A man who wants a bloodless gospel wants a Christless gospel, whether he has enough sense to admit it or not.
Faith in His blood is not faith in human suffering generally. It is not faith in religious emotion stirred up by looking at a crucifix. It is not faith in the mass, where Rome pretends to continue or re-present what Hebrews says was done once. It is not faith in sacramental handling of Christ by a priest. It is faith in His blood. The sinner rests on the shed blood of Jesus Christ as God’s appointed satisfaction for sin. Faith does not add value to the blood. Faith receives what God says about the blood. The power is not in the intensity of the sinner’s faith; the power is in the blood of Christ. A trembling hand can receive a strong Saviour.
The blood also keeps salvation objective. Feelings change. Religious moods change. Church attendance changes. Personal victory rises and falls. The sinner’s tears dry up. His promises weaken. His memory fades. But the blood stands. God saw the blood in Exodus 12 and passed over. He did not say, “When I see your sincerity.” He did not say, “When I see your improvement.” He did not say, “When I see your religious résumé.” He said, “When I see the blood.” That is the ground of peace. The believer’s assurance does not rest in looking inward at his emotional temperature. It rests in looking outward and upward to the blood God accepts. Faith in His blood is the end of religious guessing.
Chapter Four: To Declare His Righteousness
Paul says this propitiation through faith in His blood is “to declare his righteousness.” Calvary is a declaration. It declares that God is righteous. That is not how modern man usually thinks of the cross. He thinks the cross declares love, and it does. Romans 5:8 says God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. But Romans 3 says the cross declares righteousness. Before Calvary is man’s comfort, it is God’s vindication. God’s justice had to be declared. God’s holiness had to be upheld. God’s treatment of sin had to be shown to be righteous. The blood of Christ does that.
Why did God’s righteousness need to be declared? Because God had passed over sins before the cross in view of the coming sacrifice. Old Testament saints were forgiven, but the full payment was not yet historically accomplished. God was forbearing. He was not ignoring sin. He was not unjustly sweeping it away. He was looking forward to the blood of Christ. The sacrifices under the law pointed forward, but Hebrews 10:4 says, “it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” Those sacrifices were shadows. Christ is the substance. Calvary declares that God was righteous in His forbearance because the true payment has now been made.
This is a glorious and sobering truth. God’s righteousness is not compromised by mercy. It is declared in mercy because mercy comes through blood. God does not have to choose between being loving and being just. He is both. The cross does not make God less righteous so He can forgive. It reveals His righteousness in forgiving through Christ. Every sin God remitted before the cross, every believer God justified after the cross, every guilty sinner God saves now, all of it is righteous because of the propitiation in the blood of Jesus Christ. Calvary is God saying to heaven, earth, and hell: sin has been judged, righteousness has been declared, and grace has a righteous foundation.
Chapter Five: For the Remission of Sins That Are Past
Romans 3:25 says, “for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.” This phrase must not be handled carelessly. It does not mean a Church Age believer is only forgiven of sins committed before his personal conversion and then left to maintain salvation by works after that. That is a favorite ditch for people who cannot read Romans without dragging a chain behind them. The context is not a saved man losing forgiveness for future sins. The context is God’s righteousness in passing over sins committed before the historical death of Christ, through His forbearance. Paul is explaining how God could remit sins before Calvary while remaining righteous. The answer is that Christ’s blood was the appointed satisfaction toward which all true remission pointed.
The Old Testament believer was not saved by animal blood as though a goat could redeem a soul. He was saved on the basis of God’s grace through faith in the revelation given, with the blood of Christ as the ultimate ground of redemption. The sacrifices looked forward. The priesthood ministered under shadows. The mercy seat spoke of propitiation. The Day of Atonement preached substitution in picture form. But the real answer was Christ. God’s forbearance held back immediate full judgment, not because sin was small, but because the Lamb of God would come and bear sin. John the Baptist did not say, “Behold the sacramental system.” He said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
This also magnifies the unity and progression of Scripture. God has never been casual about sin. He was not lenient in the Old Testament and strict in the New. He was forbearing in view of Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ reaches in its value across the whole program of redemption. The Old Testament saint looked forward through shadows. The Church Age believer looks back to the finished work. The Tribulation saint will still be saved on the basis of Christ’s blood, though his doctrinal setting and tests are not identical to the Body of Christ. The ground is Christ, not human merit. The remission of sins past through God’s forbearance is not God forgetting justice; it is God waiting for the cross that would declare His justice.
Chapter Six: At This Time His Righteousness
Romans 3:26 says, “To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness.” Paul repeats the purpose because it matters. “At this time” points to the present manifestation of God’s righteousness through the completed work of Christ. The cross has now happened. The blood has been shed. The resurrection has declared Christ to be the Son of God with power. The righteousness of God is now manifested without the law. This is not shadow anymore. This is not promise only. This is not type only. This is the historical accomplishment and apostolic proclamation of redemption in Christ Jesus.
Paul’s “at this time” is especially important in a Pauline epistle. God is now revealing the righteousness of God in the gospel with full clarity. The law and prophets witnessed it, but now it is manifested. Christ has been set forth. Propitiation has been made. Justification is preached through faith in His blood. The believer in this present dispensation does not wait for a priest to offer another sacrifice. He does not stand at an altar hoping the blood of bulls and goats will cover him another year. He stands in the finished work of Christ. Hebrews 10:12 says, “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.” A seated Saviour means the sacrifice is complete.
“At this time” also rebukes every religious system that wants to keep sinners in the shadows after the substance has come. Rome’s mass is a shadow machine pretending to handle the substance. Legalism drags men back to Sinai after Calvary has spoken. Ritualism keeps men busy with outward forms after God has set forth Christ. Liberalism removes the blood and leaves men with ethics. Modern evangelical softness often mentions the cross but drains it of propitiation, wrath, justice, and blood until it becomes a motivational symbol. Paul says God has declared His righteousness at this time. The time for shadows as the ground of approach is over. Christ has died. The blood has been shed. God has spoken.
Chapter Seven: Just and the Justifier
Here is the summit: “that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” This is one of the greatest statements in the Bible. God is just, and God justifies. Not one at the expense of the other. Both. He does not justify by becoming unjust. He does not remain just by refusing to justify. He is just and the justifier because Christ is the propitiation through faith in His blood. That is the answer to the whole problem of sin. If God justified sinners without payment, He would be unjust. If God judged all sinners without mercy, He would be just, but no sinner would be saved. At Calvary, God’s justice and grace meet in the blood of Christ.
This destroys the idea that justification is legal fiction. God does not pretend believers are righteous while ignoring the real problem. He justifies on the basis of Christ’s redemption. The believer is in Christ. The blood has answered sin. The righteousness of God is imputed to the believer by faith. God’s declaration is not make-believe; it is grounded in the finished work of His Son. The Judge is not bribed. The law is not ignored. Sin is not minimized. The Substitute has satisfied justice, and therefore God can justify the ungodly who believes in Jesus. That is why Romans 4:5 will be able to say God “justifieth the ungodly.” The ungodly believer is justified because Christ took the judgment.
The condition is stated plainly: “him which believeth in Jesus.” Not him which worketh. Not him which performeth. Not him which taketh sacraments. Not him which joineth Rome. Not him which keepeth Moses. Not him which endureth religious probation. Him which believeth in Jesus. Faith receives Christ. Faith rests in His blood. Faith abandons self-righteousness. Faith agrees with God that the sinner is guilty and Christ is sufficient. The God who is just becomes the justifier of that believer. That is salvation without boasting, grace without compromise, righteousness without law-works, and forgiveness without injustice. That is the gospel.
Conclusion
Romans 3:25–26 explains how God can save sinners without compromising His righteousness. Christ was set forth by God as a propitiation through faith in His blood. The cross declares God’s righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through His forbearance, and it declares at this time His righteousness so that He might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. That is the Godward foundation of justification. Calvary satisfies God before it comforts man. The sinner can have peace because God’s justice has been answered.
This passage defends the blood atonement against every bloodless counterfeit. Liberal theology may be embarrassed by the blood. Modern religion may reduce the cross to moral influence. Rome may bury the finished work under a repeated sacramental system. Legalism may try to add human merit. Sentimental Christianity may talk about love while avoiding wrath and propitiation. But Romans 3 stands like a stone wall: propitiation through faith in His blood. Without the blood, there is no remission. Without propitiation, there is no righteous justification. Without Christ set forth by God, there is no salvation. A bloodless gospel is no gospel at all.
So let the passage stand in all its glory. God is just. God is the justifier. The sinner believes in Jesus. The blood answers sin. Righteousness is declared. Grace is established on a righteous foundation. The believer does not need to wonder whether God lowered the standard to save him. God did not lower it. Christ met it. The believer does not need to fear that his forgiveness is built on divine sentiment. It is built on blood. He does not need to crawl to a priest, return to Moses, trust a ceremony, or polish his flesh. He believes in Jesus Christ, whose blood is the propitiation, whose redemption is sufficient, and whose finished work allows God to justify the ungodly while remaining perfectly, eternally, gloriously just.
Romans Verse-by-Verse Commentary
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Romans 1:1 Commentary – Paul, a Servant of Jesus Christ
Romans 1:2-4 Commentary – The Gospel Promised Beforehand
Romans 1:5–7 Commentary – Grace, Apostleship, and Obedience to the Faith