“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24)

     I spent years in doubt, years of struggle and it seemingly, for me, all rested in this great doctrine, justification. I wonder if that is the same for everyone as it seems that nothing can be truly known, nothing can be truly rested in unless we know that God has peace with us and He only has peace with the righteous. That was the key, you see, knowing that God abhors unrighteousness and so it was the following verse that God used to enlighten my troubled conscience and soul.

“But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5)

     Of myself, I am ungodly, and yet I am fully justified, fully righteous in the sight of God by the redeeming work of Christ only, not by works that I could offer then, now, tomorrow or the next day. It is by the faith that God has given me to believe, to know, to rejoice in and to rely upon the gospel alone that is my peace and my only assurance.

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1)

“How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14)

     The book of Romans is perhaps the most profound book in all of scripture and it has been said ‘if you know any book forwards and backwards, it should be the book of Romans’. It is absolutely full of every truth that we need to know and especially the truth of justification. I don’t tire of hearing it, I don’t tire of being reminded of it nor of talking about it because it is here, to this truth, and these verses I must go when I am in need of assurance, to Christ, and to the work that He has done for me. What is our true assurance but SOLA FIDE, and that faith can only be centered on what God has accomplished in His Son and subsequently the confidence, the settled conviction and affirmation of that in our very souls.

• Sola Fide!
• Sola Gratia!
• Sola Christo!
• Sola Scriptura!
• Soli Deo Gloria!