I like to be right. Who doesn’t? It is a position of power and authority to be right. On the other hand, I hate to be wrong. Being right means that your actions are justified and correct. Being wrong requires repentance and discipline if not corrected.

My wife and I were once traveling through Atlanta long before the advent of GPS and navigation apps. It was late, and I was tired and ready to get home. For reasons that now evade my memory, we had gotten off the interstate and were entangled in the labyrinth of one-way downtown streets. I was driving and chose to rely on my own sense of direction while disregarding my wife’s gentle suggestions. I was sure that I knew the right way to get back on the interstate. After the next turn, stoplight, or block, she would be forced to acknowledge that my choice of directions was right. However, after left and right turns gave way to more left and right turns, my level of frustration grew as I hopelessly searched for the interstate’s entrance that now seemed purposely eluding me. All the while, my wife was making suggestions that I ignored because I wanted to be right. I eventually erupted in frustration. Feeling defeated by the streets and wanting to prove that I was not alone in my defeat, I stopped the car and got out. I sharply suggested that if she knew how to find the interstate then maybe she should be the one driving. And she did. With only a couple of turns, she was at the interstate entrance. Within about a minute, we were once again traveling on the interstate. With only the noise of the engine, we drove on the mostly empty road for what seemed like a long while. I sat there unwilling to look toward her. She had known the right direction the whole time, but I had been unwilling to listen. I had been wrong. We rode for a while in the silence, then, as my stress and shame began to dissipate, laughter erupted, and we both enjoyed the moment.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul brings an indictment upon us in that none are right in the sight of God. This concept to the Jewish mind would have been troubling at the least and blasphemous at most. This concept to the modern mind is just as troubling. Paul teaches in the third chapter of Romans that there is no distinction between Jew or the Gentile because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

The real issue here is a broken relationship with God. In sin, we are separated from God. In sin, we were under the judgment and wrath of God. In sin, we cannot commune with God. We were created to be in fellowship with God, but this created purpose is broken by sin. Paul makes clear that all have sinned and thus all are under the condemnation of sin, and thus not in a right relationship with God.

Justice demands that our sin be punished, but God has provided payment for our sin. Paul writes of a gift of justification (Rom 3:24) by God’s grace “through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” We do not deserve forgiveness. We were wrong. We have sinned. We have rebelled against God. But in grace, God offered the sacrifice of His own Son, Jesus, that our sin might be forgiven, and our relationship with Him might be restored. What an amazing gift! The one who was without sin became sin so that we, who were condemned by sin, might be made right. Amazing grace indeed!

This justification, because it restores the relationship between man and God, allows for unhindered access or fellowship with God. By the act of justification, man is made to be once again right in the eyes of God and, as a result, can participate freely in the relationship. The term of justification for Paul has a close relationship to reconciliation. He understands that man was at war against God and totally estranged from Him. Yet through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, an olive branch was offered to man to be reconciled back to a right relationship with God. The offer and price of such reconciliation is completely the work of God. Part of being justified is for man to recognize that it was his sin that brought discord and brokenness to the relationship and his inability to make it right. Therefore, only through the justification offered by God can we be made right.

Our relation with God is not about us being right on our own, but rather God, through the redemptive work of the cross, making us right. All have indeed fallen short of God’s glory. Yet for those who have been covered by the redemptive blood of Christ, it is no longer is a question of your righteousness but rather, the righteousness of Christ.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” Romans 5:1-2