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“Being Now Justified”

Substitution, Sure Salvation, and Joy in God

Romans 5:6-11

 

Being now justified by his blood,” God’s saints, stand in grace, rejoicing “in hope of the glory of God,” because we have the sweet assurance of effectual, substitutionary redemption, securing us of everlasting salvation, giving us joy in God our Savior.

 

Substitution

In Romans 5:6-8 the Apostle returns to his favorite subject, substitution, the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. No reason can be found why so great and glorious a sacrifice should be made for sinners like us, but the sovereign love of our eternal Jehovah to his people, who were all without strength and ungodly when Christ died for them.

Our Savior’s death upon the cursed tree, we are told, was in due time, the very time fixed upon in covenant engagements to honor his bond of responsibility as the Surety for his elect by his death.

How cheering this doctrine is to those who know and feel the burden of sin, to learn that we are the very people for whom Christ died – the ungodly, – and that his death for us is sufficient warrant for our complete confidence and our highest expectations. No matter how dark and deep the stain of sin, no matter how overwhelming the consciousness of sin is, here is the antidote – “Christ died for the ungodly!

This one, all-sufficient sacrifice is the commendation of the love of God to poor, needy, guilty sinners. What higher testimony could Jehovah give of his love to our souls, than the gift of his only-begotten and co-equal Son to die for sinners? But our poor depraved hearts are so unconscious of the value of that love of God, that he commends it to us in all its fulness, freeness, sovereignty, and immutability, as displayed in the death of Christ.

Nevertheless, with such commendation, and with all that the preachers of the everlasting Gospel can say to commend it, not one of Adam’s ruined race ever did, or ever will believe it and receive it until God the Holy Ghost puts forth divine power to convince man of his need of the atonement, and enables him to receive it. But when he condescends to impart life divine to the soul, making us willing in the day of his power, every refuge of lies is forsaken, and the one offering of Christ, once for all, becomes the exclusive dependence, and the daily rejoicing of that man.

 

Salvation Sure

Being now justified by his blood,” every believing sinner is assured of that glory in which we hope, every believing sinner is assured of everlasting salvation in and with Christ (Romans 5:9-10). All who are justified by the atonement of Christ and his perfect righteousness shall be saved forever; for it is impossible that the end for which Christ died can be frustrated. — He who died to make reconciliation, lives to claim salvation for all for whom he died.

 

Joy in God

Being now justified by his blood,” we who were once terrified by God now joy in God through the atonement we have received by faith in Christ. — “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement” (Romans 5:11).

The knowledge and assurance of standing complete in Christ produce joy in God, joy in the hearts of all who have received the atonement by faith. In that atonement all the perfections of Deity are seen smiling upon the sinner, having received full satisfaction for his sin. In Christ, by faith in Christ, the pardoned and justified soul joys in the justice of God as much as in his mercy and love. The beginning of this joy is in holy fellowship with all the persons in the Godhead here and now, while we live in this world. It will be consummated and perpetuated to all eternity in the world above.

 

 

 

Don Fortner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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