Fig Leaf Righteousness Or The Glory of God

 Romans 3:21-25

Sermon by Pastor Dennis Gleason -- January 9, 2005

Longing to leave her poor Brazilian neighborhood, Christina wanted to see the world. Discontent with a home having only a pallet on the floor, a washbasin, and a wood-burning stove, she dreamed of a better life in the city.

One morning she slipped away, breaking her mother's heart. Knowing what life on the streets would be like for her young, attractive daughter; Maria hurriedly packed to go find her. On her way to the bus stop she entered a drugstore to get one last thing. Pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all she could on pictures of herself. With her purse full of small black-and-white photos, she boarded the next bus to Rio de Janeiro.

Maria knew Christina had no way of earning money. She also knew that her daughter was too stubborn to give up. When pride meets hunger, a human will do things that were before unthinkable. Knowing this, Maria began her search. Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with the reputation for street walkers or prostitutes.

She went to them all. And at each place she left her picture--taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone booth. And on the back of each photo she wrote a note. It wasn't too long before both the money and the pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home.

The weary mother wept as the bus began its long journey back to her small village. It was a few weeks later that young Christina descended the hotel stairs. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare. A thousand times over she had longed to trade these countless beds for her secure pallet. Yet the little village was, in too many ways, too far away.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother. Christina's eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the small photo.

Written on the back was this compelling invitation. "Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn't matter. Please come home." She did.

21But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight¡Xnot by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago. 22We are made right in God¡¦s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done. 23For all have sinned; all fall short of God¡¦s glorious standard. 24Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. 25For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God¡¦s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us.

As we continue our study of Paul's letter to the Christians in Rome, we turn again to chapter three. At this point Paul is making the point that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God¨

Last week we considered the first part of this phrase noting that sin has affected everyone who has lived since the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Sin is what we have all inherited and what we all have as part of our experience either in sin of commission or of omission. None of us can escape this declaration of God. God has declared all men, women and children to be sinners.

Paul will make it quite clear further on in his letter that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. We don¡¦t have to do anything as human beings to be spiritually dead. That is what we are the moment we are conceived and we are spiritually dead when we are born. As such, we fall short of the glory of God. 

What is the glory of man? The glory of man is honor, esteem, praise, reputation and an estimate of genuine and merited worth.

What then is the glory of God? Is not the honor, esteem, praise, reputation and an estimate of the genuine and merited worth of God?

 Isaiah 6: 1In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. 2Hovering around him were mighty seraphim, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with the remaining two they flew. 3In a great chorus they sang, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty! The whole earth is filled with his glory!" 4The glorious singing shook the Temple to its foundations, and the entire sanctuary was filled with smoke. Habakkuk 2:14 14For the time will come when all the earth will be filled, as the waters fill the sea, with an awareness of the glory of the LORD. Psalm 19:1-4: The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship. 2 Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. 3 They speak without a sound or a word; their voice is silent in the skies;„T 4 yet their message has gone out to all the earth, and their words to all the world. Hebrews 1:3-4 3

The Son reflects God's own glory, and everything about him represents God exactly. He sustains the universe by the mighty power of his command. After he died to cleanse us from the stain of sin, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God of heaven.

The most common New Testament word for glory is doxa, from which we get our word doxology. The word came to be used for an opinion of a person, whether it was a good or a bad opinion. In the Bible it is used only for a good opinion. From there on, it comes to mean praise, honor and glory resulting from the good opinion.

People who have the right opinion of God are able to form a correct estimate of his greatness and majesty. In time the word for "opinion" which became the expression for the opinion about God, came to include praise for all God is and for all that He thinks and does.

We could say this: the glory of God is the wonderful being of God: His names of love and justice; His acts of kindness and judgment; His praise and perfections. It is also the splendor that surrounds Him; The burning bliss that causes the seraphim to veil their faces.

The glory of God has an outward manifestation. The word doxa was also used to translate the word "shekinah¨. That Hebrew word means "splendor"and "brightness". It was this splendor of God that Stephen saw when he was about to die. "He, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God.¨ (Acts 7:55).

This is the glory by which heavenly beings are surrounded when they come to the earth. You could look at Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration of Jesus (Luke 9:31). This is the glory with which Moses' face shone after he came down from the mountain (2 Cor. 3:7). Because of it the people could not look upon Moses.

This glory was symbolized by a cloud throughout the Scriptures. It appears first of all as the children of Israel are leaving Egypt. To the Egyptians it was darkness but to the people of God it was light. This glory went before them as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. This glory stood above the house of God until it was removed because of the sin of God's people.

This glory ~ appeared in the heavens when Jesus was born and the shepherds were in the field. ~ This is the cloud of glory that Jesus ascended into as he left earth for heaven. It was a cloud of glory that received him. ~ And it is the cloud of glory that will mark his second coming "Behold he is coming with clouds, and every eye shall see him." (Rev 1:7) ~ This is the glory with which we will be clothed when we shall see him and be like him.

What then is the meaning of the phrase "and fall short of the glory of God¨? Since the word glory means all of what we have been considering, we can consider the fact that man has come short of all of the inner and outer glory of the Lord. The splendor and brightness of God is seen in the experience of Paul on the road to Damascus. He meets Jesus and Paul saw a blinding light. I think it was the brightness and brilliance of the righteousness of God that blinded Paul. The glory of God is such as it is, because of the righteousness of God. Donald Barnhouse has this to say about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden:

"We have long held that man in the Garden of Eden was clothed before the fall with light; and, that when sin came, Adam and Eve realized that the light was gone and that they were naked.. The nakedness was not the nakedness of the skin, but the absence of the glorious brilliance and splendor of righteousness. When man sinned, man lost this brightness, and rushed to cover himself with fig leaves."

This covering was, of course, no substitute, and it was not until the blood was shed and the skins of the animals was given to our first parents that they were symbolically covered, having been relieved of the filthy rags of their own fig-leaf righteousness.¨ (Romans, Vol. 3, p. 88). In all the time that has passed since that event in the Garden of Eden, all the efforts of the human race have failed to give even one individual the righteousness of God which was lost in the fall.

All of man's efforts to get God's approval amount to nothing more than "fig-leaf righteousness." Man tries all kinds of substitutes for the glory he lost in the garden and none of them work.. They are never anything more that a poor substitute the will never give man the covering he desires.

All sinned (past tense) denoting one time in the past. And are falling short (present tense) of the glory of God. God dwells in a brightness that no man can approach. No man can see God and live. In the verses that follow we see how it all comes together: Paul is a Hebrew and had been raised with the teachings of the Old Testament, and he knew about the tabernacle and everything it stood for.

He realized that the pillar of cloud and fire had hung over the Holy of Holies, and that this represented the dwelling place of God among men. He knew that men had to approach God but they could not see him face to face because of the brightness of His glory. Men had fallen short. They were afar off from God. The cloud of glory hangs over the holy of holies and man cannot approach it. He is kept away by his own sin. Unless a way was found for him to enter the Holy of Holies, he could never see God.

Paul who had seen the glory of God on the road to Damascus, realizes that it must entirely be by the grace of God. He brings man to the barrier and stops us there. Unless the Lamb dies no man can ever come into the glory of God. We can see in the verses that follow that the Lamb will die, the veil in the temple will be torn in two and the glory of the Lord shall be put to our account through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Please note that when we receive what we need from God it is not that we become a pardoned criminal. You will remember when the Governor of Illinois, George Ryan, was leaving office he pardoned a number of people on death row. A pardoned person was convicted of a crime and remains a criminal¡Kit is now that they become a pardoned criminal. If you forgive someone of an offense against you, you forgive them for what they have done. It does not remove the fact that they are guilty. You just forgive them for what they have done.

They are still guilty. But when God deals with the sinner who has accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord of his life, he is declared righteous by God Himself.. He is no longer falling short of the glory of God. He is as if he had never sinned and his righteousness is restored. When people experience the presence of the glory of God, two things usually happen. 1. People become painfully aware that nothing they can possibly do will be good enough to gain God's approval. 2. They also become aware of God's intense love for them; an intense love that speaks forgiveness and a desire to heal all hurts.

Through Jesus Christ God says to us: "Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn't matter. Please come home." That is the appeal of the Good News about Jesus.

And when we come home we receive forgiveness and righteousness, the righteousness of God once again. And as such, we will be able to openly enter the presence of God and behold His glory forever.

--Dennis Gleason