I am looking away from myself now to one who bore in his body on the cross my unrighteousness and my poisonous tongue, and my grave-like throat

and my murderous feet.

I'm done, and I embrace him, and I embrace him and I trust him and I receive the promise of righteousness

freely given by God which can clothe me like asbestos so that I pass through the flames of final judgment and enter into eternal life made new with my God forever and ever and ever and ever.

That's Christianity.

What makes Christianity Christianity?

John Piper's answer from Romans 3, 9 to 18

in this episode of Light and Truth

is righteousness freely given. This sermon was originally preached at Beth. Righteousness Freely Given.

This sermon was originally preached

at Bethlehem Baptist Church on March 21st, 1999.

My answer to the question, how does Paul support the general overarching statement that everybody is under sin, is that it's not just one of these texts that he puts together, it's all of them, Gentiles, unrighteous, Jews walking into the paths of unrighteousness.

David himself, though a righteous man before God, is wicked by nature and has to be by mercy drawn

to the

point, point and justified by faith alone. And so the point here is not to contradict

justification by faith in the Old Testament taught so clearly

and which Paul one chapter later will affirm with all

his heart the point is to say apart from saving grace apart from the wooing

work of God to rescue us from our corruption, there is none righteous.

No, not one.

If he has defended his point in this way about all of us being under sin, how does he open it for us,

how does he explain it? How does he describe being under sin? What is it like to be under sin? What do you mean by

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