Your Relationship with God is Secure!
Welcome back to my blog!
Christians have entered the gateway to a relationship with God by faith in Christ’s forgiveness for our sins by His death on the cross. Through His gracious sacrifice, God sees us without fault and completely accepted by Him (Ephesians 2:7-9; Romans 3:21-25; Romans 10:9).
What is next step? After salvation, it is vital to realize that as Christians we are SECURE in our relationship with God. Why is this critical? We cannot grow in our faith and serve others well if we lack confidence that God accepts us.
We are starting a discussion today over the assurances of salvation. These guarantees are critical to understand so we have a complete knowledge of our salvation and confidence before God.
This week let us describe justification:
Justification (we are declared innocent)
This is the wonderful result of Christ’s sacrificial death. Let’s examine the details of the meaning of this great promise.
Meaning of the Greek New Testament word – Importantly, the complete meaning in Greek of the word “justification” (δικαιος, dikaios) is not fully conveyed in English. The word dikaios carried a legal sense that still exists today in modern Greek. In the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, the term signified that someone who was found innocent in a court of law of all charges against them, just like now, there was no double jeopardy (1). This important legal concept means once you have been found innocent you cannot be charged again for the same crime.
Christ’s work in justification – The Bible teaches that each of us has sinned and “fallen short” of what God requires of us (Romans 3:23). Because God is just, He demands punishment for our misdeeds. However, because He is loving, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to take the punishment in our place (Romans 3:24-26).
We were pronounced “innocent” before God when we trusted Christ for forgiveness of our sins. We do this only once and our sins are forgiven for all time. Since Christ’s sacrifice was sufficient for all our sins for all time, nobody can charge us again (Romans 8:31-34). Again, there is no double jeopardy!
No other work is required – Importantly, Christ is a sufficient sacrifice for our sins as He Himself is perfect, holy and without sin (Romans 3:25; Hebrews 7:26; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Therefore, Christ satisfied God’s righteous demand for judgment. Accordingly, He died once for all sin, for all time, and He does not need to do this again as did the Old Testament priests (Hebrews 6:1-14, and 10:10-18). This is signified when he sat down at the right hand of God the Father; His work to provide salvation was finished (Ephesians 1:20).
Example, it’s as though Christ acted as a courtroom judge, found us guilty of our sins, sentenced us to death, but afterwards, stood up, removed His judicial robe, came around in front of the judge’s bench and took the punishment for us, for our past, present and future sins!
What a fantastic promise, given out of love and wisdom, from our gracious God who considers us sinless based on the sacrifice of His precious Son who makes it to us out of his love and wisdom. Thanks be to God who has provided us such a gracious salvation as a free gift through faith in Christ.
Join me next time as we continue this amazing discussion of the results of salvation and our wonderful security that we have in our relationship with God.
William C. Stewart, MD
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