http://biblebitbybit.blogspot.com/2015/05/romans-3-v-25a.html
Posted by Romans on Saturday, 30 May 2015
Romans 3:25-26
(25) 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;
(26) To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
God’s purpose in Christ’s death was to demonstrate His justice (i.e., God’s own judicial righteousness, dikaiosynēs; cf. comments on 1:17) because in His forbearance (anochē, “holding back, delay”) He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished (cf. Acts 17:30). Why did God not always punish sins in the past? Does this mean He is not righteous after all? Previously Paul said God was forbearing because He wanted to lead people to repent (Rom. 2:4). Here God is said to be forbearing because He anticipated His provision for sins in the death of Jesus Christ. Such forbearance was an evidence of His grace (cf. Acts 14:16; 17:30), not of His injustice.
Paul was so insistent that God’s righteousness be recognized that (Rom. 3:26) he repeated (from v. 25) the words to demonstrate His justice (dikaiosynēs, “righteousness”). God’s purpose in the redemptive and propitiatory death of Jesus Christ was so that He could be seen to be just (dikaion, “righteous”) and the One who justifies (dikaiounta, “the One who declares righteous”) the man who has faith in Jesus. God’s divine dilemma was how to satisfy His own righteousness and its demands against sinful people, and at the same time how to demonstrate His grace, love, and mercy to restore rebellious, alienated creatures to Himself. The solution was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God’s incarnate Son, and the acceptance by faith of that provision by individual sinners. Christ’s death vindicated God’s own righteousness (He is just because sin was “paid for”) and enables God to declare every believing sinner righteous.
