Rightly dividing the Word of Truth. 31
Rightly dividing the Word of truth
This is part 31 in a series of 53 articles about RIGHTLY DIVIDING GOD’S WORD OF TRUTH. All scripture quoted will be from the King James Bible.
In part 31, we begin looking at the Gospel of grace, the only gospel by which we can be saved in our present time. I will be using some of the scriptures already presented in these articles, because they are part of the true gospel message which we need to know about for everlasting, or eternal life with God.
As I wrote about in previous articles, there are at least four gospels mentioned in the Bible, but only the gospel given to Paul by God, two thousand years ago, called the gospel of the grace of God, will be able to bring salvation to anyone living in this present evil world.
So, now we come to the beautiful, glorious gospel, the good tidings of our salvation. Romans 3:24 tells us that men are “justified freely by His (God’s) grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
We all know what redemption is, that it is buying a thing back that has been sold. When Adam sinned, he sold the human race over to sin and to death. Christ, by taking human sin and its penalty, death, upon Himself, accomplished a redemption for man. Christ’s blood, His human life, was the ransom-price which He paid for man. Because Christ was the second Adam, representing our human race, the full penalty of sin for the human race was paid at the Cross. Christ “gave Himself a ransom for all,” 1 Timothy 2: 6.
Sin, therefore, has no more hold over our human race. This is “the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
We shall now see God’s method of applying this redemption to the children of men. For, although Christ gave Himself a ransom for all, but not all are actually redeemed. The ransom must be accepted and applied on an individual basis. It is on the basis of this ransom of Christ’s blood, paid down for all men, that God is able righteously to publish His Great Gospel of loving favor to the condemned, “the gospel of the grace of God.”
We come at last to that wondrous, glorious, blessed, happy, overwhelming word, grace.
There are two ways to satisfy God’s law: one by fulfilling its requirements; the other by suffering its penalty, if its requirements are broken.
We all have broken God’s law. We were under sentence; we were condemned; we deserved death and eternal separation from God.
We could not make up for our sin by good works. God had said that by deeds of the law no flesh should be justified. We were all condemned criminals. How could God accept our wretched, sin-stained work? He could not righteously, and therefore would not, do it.
So, He sent Jesus Christ, His Son, to satisfy the claims of the law against us, by bearing its penalty for us, that is, by dying in our place. To be continued