Romans 5:8-10
“But God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
As great a gift as God’s merciful forgiveness is, being forgiven through Christ’s blood is not salvation. As essential as the concept of justification through the blood of Christ may be, it is only the beginning of the salvation process. With the Salvation process, we are saved by the continuous granting of grace from our High Priest.
The doctrine that the Apostle Paul used in preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which highlights God justifying by faith rather than by works and Salvation being by Jesus Christ’s life, met much strong opposition and persecution from the zealous Jews of that time. It appears that to zealous Jews of that time, it no doubt made no sense and these teaching of the Salvation process was extremely dangerous to their belief systems and thought they were privileged in God’s sight, as the possessor of the Law of God. Perhaps, they perceived these teachings of the Gospel message, as an invitation to sin against the Law of God, because it seemed too easy and that God would ignore their efforts to please Him.
It is logical to ask, why our justification must be by grace through faith in Jesus Christ? It seems that it must be this way because, if we earned Salvation with justification through our works, it opens the door for human pride. That would lead us to think we did not need to enter into a personal covenant relationship with God, through Jesus Christ. If we were justified by works, we could claim that God owed us Salvation, because we had met or earned the terms of Salvation. We could claim that God chose us, because we are good.
It is dangerous to allow pride into our thinking more of ourselves than what is truly good for our character development. We are not the creator, but the creation, subject to the designs and purposes of the Master. Perhaps for our own good, it appears that the design process for Salvation, with sanctification and justification, must be given as a free and unearned gift.
