John Calvin Commentary Romans 3:24

"being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:" — Romans 3:24 (ASV)

Being justified freely, and so forth. A participle is used here for a verb according to the custom of the Greek language. The meaning is this: since nothing remains for humankind, in themselves, but to perish, being struck by the just judgment of God, they are justified freely through His mercy. For Christ comes to the aid of this misery and communicates Himself to believers, so that they find in Him alone all those things that they lack. There is, perhaps, no passage in all of Scripture that more strikingly illustrates the efficacy of His righteousness, for it shows that God’s mercy is the efficient cause, Christ with His blood is the meritorious cause, faith in the word is the formal or instrumental cause, and, moreover, the final cause is the glory of divine justice and goodness.

Regarding the efficient cause, he says that we are justified freely, and furthermore, by His grace. He repeats the word in this way to show that the whole is from God, and nothing from us. It might have been enough to oppose grace to merits; but so that we do not imagine a half kind of grace, he affirms more strongly by repetition what he means, and claims for God’s mercy alone the whole glory of our righteousness—which the sophists divide into parts and mutilate, so that they are not forced to confess their own poverty.

Through the redemption, and so forth. This is the material cause: Christ by His obedience satisfied the Father’s justice (judicium—judgment), and by undertaking our cause He liberated us from the tyranny of death, by which we were held captive, for our guilt is removed on account of the sacrifice He offered. Here again is fully refuted the interpretation of those who make righteousness a quality; for if we are counted righteous before God because we are redeemed by a price, we certainly derive from another what is not in us.

And Paul immediately explains more clearly what this redemption is and what its object is, which is to reconcile us to God. For he calls Christ a propitiation (or, if we prefer an allusion to an ancient type, a propitiatory). But what he means is that we are just only through Christ propitiating the Father for us. However, it is necessary for us to examine the words.