The One Path to Justification Before Almighty God

The Apostle Paul was not ashamed of the Gospel of God, the Gospel of grace, the Gospel of peace, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ because of its power to save everyone who believes it, both Jew and Gentile (Rom 1:16).

First, we learn what we are saved from. We are saved from the wrath of God (Rom 1:18). This is a surprise to many, who may understand being saved from hell, from Satan, and maybe even sin. It is true that God saves His elect from all of that, and the world, too.

The wrath of God is His hatred in action. Gods hates sin, and all those who do iniquity (Ps 5:5; 11:5). God is just, and He is our righteous Judge (Gen 18:25; Ps 96:13). One may object and claim that Jesus was meek and mild. This is the reason we must read our Bibles. One may claim that Jesus is the Lamb of God (Jn 1:29; Rev 5:6, 12). Have you never read of the wrath of the Lamb? “…and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb (Rev 6:16).’” Unbelievers do not believe the Bible, so they wag their heads (Ps 22:7; 109:25).

It is typical for adherents of Judaism to misinterpret the types, shadows, and even the prophecies of the Old Testament. They miss Jesus the Messiah and have invented a works-based religion of righteousness. They imagine they are the Israel of God because of their ethnicity (Ps 49:3, 6).

The Apostle Paul corrects his countrymen in Romans 2. He also reproves modern-day Zionism and Dispensationalism. In truth, there is only one people of God, created in Christ Jesus, by one covenant of grace, cut with His precious blood (1 Pet 1:19), that saves His people from their sins (Mt 1:21). Who are His people?

A glance at the throne room of heaven, revealed to the Apostle John, allows us to see people from every nation, tribe, and tongue (Rev 5:9; 7:9). God is not just the God of the Jews, only, is He? The doctrine of the Gentile inclusion corrects any misconception of ethnic preference or superiority (Acts 10, 15, 16, 17, 19); for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).

God is just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom 3:26). Justification means that one has the right, and great privilege, to stand before Almighty God, having been declared “not guilty.” So how then is one justified in God’s presence?

We have already determined that it is not by good works of obedience to the Law of God (Rom 2; 4:5). It is also not by the free will of man (Jn 1:13; Rom 9:16). In other words, nobody makes a decision that justifies him before the holy perfection of God. It is also not by ethnicity, as we noted (Jn 1:13; Rom 2; 9–11).

Justification (“not guilty”) is by the blood of the Lamb (Rom 5:9), Jesus, who takes away the sins of His people (Mt 1:21) from all over the world (1 Jn 2:2; Rev 5:9). Justification is also by grace (Rom 3:24). Grace is the work of God that finds its application, according to the will and choice of God. Grace visits unworthy, ungodly, sinners, whom God predestined to adoption into His family (Rom 8:30; Eph 1:4). So to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned to him as righteousness (Rom 4:5).

Justification by faith is the Apostle Paul’s emphasis in Romans 4. The patriarch, Abraham, is the primary example, but the writer of Hebrews adds a good number of Old Testament saints to the list, of those who received the Holy Spirit and walked in faith (Heb 11).

It is the Holy Spirit, who is sent from God the Father and God the Son in heaven (Jn 14:26; 15:26), that distinguishes the justified from the unjust, the believer from the unbeliever, for he who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life (1 Jn 5:12). Stated another way, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him (Jn 3:36).”

Therefore, the man of faith is in Christ by God’s doing (1 Cor 1:30). He was conceived in sin, in the family line of Adam, the first man (Ps 51:5). He is born with a spiritually dead soul because of his inheriting Adam’s original sin (Rom 5:12). Every natural man has a sin nature, and sins against God, until his body of sin wears out (1 Cor 2:14; Eph 2:3; Rom 6:23). His death is appointed by God (Heb 9:27) and so is his day of sentencing before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor 5:10; Rev 20:11). As a vessel of wrath, prepared for destruction, his eternal home is fiery hell in the lake of fire (Rev 20:14–15).

In God’s eternal plan of salvation, He has determined to have mercy on a few (Rom 9:15), a remnant (Rom 11:5), who were selected in eternity past, whose names were written in the Lamb’s book of life (Rev 13:8; 17:8; 21:27), who were redeemed at the cross of Calvary (Rom 5:8; 1 Pet 2:24), and who received the Spirit of Christ (Jn 3:1–8), according to the will of God (Jn 1:13).

It is the Holy Spirit, sent to us as a pledge of our full salvation, having poured out God’s love in our hearts (Rom 5:5; 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5), who has baptized every born again soul, and who abides there in our hearts (Jn 14:17; Rom 8:9, 11; Jas 4:5). He guides into all truth (Jn 16:13), and will guide us home to heavenly Jerusalem, heaven, our eternal home (Rev 21–22).

Examine yourself, today, to see if God has given you the gift of His Spirit and faith to believe in Christ (Phil 1:29). Rejoice in His grace, if you do (Eph 2:8–9; Titus 3:5). Be warned of the wrath to come, if you do not (1 Thess 1:10). Read the book of Romans, in the Bible, if you lack understanding in these crucial matters of eternity.

David Norczyk

Spokane Valley, Washington

September 17, 2022