| How We Are Saved, Part 15: God's Viewpoint - God Pardoned Us and Made Us Right with Him |
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| Written by David Lawrence |
| Monday, November 24 2008 00:00 |
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We return to the passage in Romans 8:29-30 that we may call “the golden chain” of the Bible, as it links together the sovereign decrees of God that result in our eternal salvation: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” All those whom God calls, He justifies. Paul discusses justification in great detail in Romans 3-5 and Galatians 2, and Jesus refers to it in John 5:24. Paul cites Abraham as the example of our justification: he believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6, Rom. 4:3). Justification is by faith alone. It is not because of faith, but by faith. When we put our trust in Christ, God declares us righteous based on the finished work of His Son Jesus Christ. From our standpoint as we saw earlier, we must believe in Christ to be saved. Yet this very faith is a gift from God to those He has made alive (Eph. 2:8-9, Phil. 1:29, Heb. 12:2). The new birth precedes faith, but all who are born again come to believe. If you believe in Christ, you have been born again (1 John 5:1). When you believe in Christ, your sins are imputed to Christ, they are counted against Him, and he has paid your sin debt in full, “He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification” (Rom. 4:25). At the same time His perfect righteousness, earned by his complete obedience to God’s commandments and laws, are now imputed to you, credited to you. God now sees you in Christ. He never again sees your sins, but rather He sees the perfect righteousness of His Son. He saw your sins when He forsook His Son on the cross (Matt. 27:46). “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). Think of justification as being in a court. You are the accused, and you stand before the judge. The judge says “Acquitted! You may go as a free man and be considered as a law-abiding citizen.” Yet you know you are guilty. How can this be? Someone else has paid your debt and earned your right standing as a free citizen, the judge’s own son! And the decree of this court can never be revoked or overturned! |
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