Romans 3:23–26 — for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
It may not be obvious at first sight, but the Table proclaims the patience (forbearance) of God also. How is this true? Paul explains in this section of his letter to the church in Rome.
We know that there is only one way to be saved - it is by trusting entirely to the finished work of the Lord Jesus. By His perfect life, He earned righteousness that we needed; by His atoning death, He bore the punishment that the sins of His people had deserved.
What's more, Jesus is the one way of salvation whether you lived before His appearing as a man or afterwards. All of those saved in the Old Testament were saved by trusting in the Messiah to come, pictured for them in all the types and shadows of the ceremonial law, declared to them through the prophets and symbolized for them in characters such as David, Moses and even Adam. All those saved since Christ came are saved by trusting in the same Christ, revealed to them in the pages of the New Testament as the One promised for so many years.
This economy of salvation presents a difficulty, though, if the justice of God is to be satisfied and vindicated. This is because until Christ died on the cross, there was no actual sacrifice to take away the sins of those who died trusting in the promised Messiah to save them - it was anticipated but it had not happened yet. Those individuals entered heaven based upon the payment Jesus would make for their sins in the future. In the meantime, for the thousands of years from the time of Adam until Christ died on the cross, Paul tells us that God patiently "passed over" their sins. Their sins were paid for, or God would not be just to allow them to enter heaven, but that payment was made in the future for them, when Christ came, lived a perfect life and died on the cross.
And so everything is perfectly resolved: the justice of God is vindicated in that no sinner enters heaven whose sin was not purged away at Calvary. At the same time, though, God was able to justify all those who put their faith in Christ Jesus, whether it was before He died on the cross or afterwards.
Let's pause and marvel at the plans and purposes of God. In addition, when we come to the Table, let's remember that it proclaims to us how God saved many people in anticipation of the cross, and then waited patiently until the fullness of the times had come, to send Jesus into the world to redeem them, together with all who would put their trust in Him afterwards. There is a wonderful certainty about the plans of God, therefore, and this is seen nowhere more clearly than at the cross, and at the Table where we remember the sacrifice of Christ. We will see later that the Table points forward to the great marriage feast of the Lamb that will take place at the end of the age. That meal may be thousands of years in the future, but there is not the slightest doubt that it will happen. He is a God of astonishing patience. He keeps all His promises, even though this takes thousands of years in some cases. How God's children should rest easy in the light of these things!
