Justified?

Romans 5:1-11

The letter to the Romans is theologically one of the richest of all Paul’s letters. Romans 1:16-17 gives a summary of the letter, ‘For I am not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written; “The righteous will live by faith.”

Paul then shows what this righteousness is and how God, solely out of grace, justifies a person. “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…..God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (5:6,8) So, as a Christian, you are declared by God, justified by grace alone through faith, through Christ alone.

But that is not the end of the story, for now Paul points to a number of implications as to what this means in the Christian life. This is why Paul begins chapter 5 with “therefore.” Perhaps one of the most startling revelations here is that because of being declared justified by God, we now have the ability to “glory in” our sufferings. We will explore this a little more this Sunday.

Pastor Darryl

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash