Romans 3:21-26, God's Righteous Wrath and Mercy

The Reason for Displaying His Righteousness from the Perspective of God (v. 25b–26)

Verifying His Wrath and Mercy (v. 25b)

Just as before, v. 25b is really a direct continuation of verse 25a, with no sentence breaks in the original (just as 25a related to verse 24), but for the sake of clarity it is best to begin a new sentence here in English. “He did this to demonstrate His righteous” or more literally, “for a demonstration,” this indicates the purpose of God’s action in v. 25a. The idea is “God displayed Jesus Christ in order to demonstrate His righteousness” or unpacked further “God publicly displayed Jesus Christ in order to demonstrate that He is righteousness” (Wallace, 117).

Paul now shifts from explaining why God needed to demonstrate His righteousness from the perspective of humanity (so that He alone would be the justifier, v. 26b), to why He displayed His righteousness from His own perspective (so that He would be just, v. 26a). The reason: “because in the forbearance of God He had withheld His wrath against the sins previously committed” or more literally translated “He passed over the sins previously committed.” To translate this as simply “passed over” would give the impression that the past sins will be forgotten without any retribution whatsoever. Rather what is indicated is really the idea of “to leave unpunished for a time though a penalty still remains.”[1]

The sins referred to before the time of Christ becoming hilastērion were not punished as they should (as imperfect sacrifices were accepted for their atonement) nor were they atoned for as they needed. The idea of God patiently holding back his wrath is familiar (Romans 2:4; Acts 17:30), but for God to pass over sins would be incompatible with his righteousness. “God has in fact been able to pass over sins without compromising His goodness and mercy because His intention has all along been to deal with them once and for all, decisively and finally, through the cross” (Cranfield, 1:212).

In other words, this was a demonstration of God’s righteousness because all sins (past, present, and future) are solely atoned for by the only acceptable sacrifice of Jesus Christ.[2] God displayed Christ as hilastērion so that the reality of his righteousness, goodness, and mercy (which would be questioned by sinful humanity wanting to see evil punished) might be established.

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[1] πάρεσιν occurs only once here, but its cognate verb (Cranfield, 1:211) occurs in Luke 11:42 (in reference to neglecting people that should have been paid attention to) and Hebrews 12:12 (in reference to a muscle that had been neglected and needed to be strengthened. In both cases the object is not forgotten entirely, but it is necessarily revisited.

[4] This is not to say that Old Testament saints were saved through an explicit faith in Christ. Rather, that from God’s perspective, He accepted their insufficient sacrifices based on their faith in Him to accomplish His promises which were culminated in Christ.