TODAY’S VERSES:
Romans 3:23-24 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,”
Last month we learned about redemption, an important part of God’s salvation plan for His children. Redemption is the payment of the debt owed to God for sin. It was paid by the blood of Jesus Christ and was also used to purchase believers as His very own possession! From the verse above, you can see that God’s salvation plan also includes justification.
What is justification, you ask? Justification is “the action of declaring or making righteous (free from guilt or sin)” .
You may be wondering how you became unrighteous and guilty of sin in the first place. Well, it all started back in the Garden of Eden with the first two people God created, Adam and Eve. They were both created sinless and given only one command to obey in order to stay that way.
Genesis 2:15-17 “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”
We do not have to tell you that they did not obey this command from the Lord, right?!
Genesis 3:6 “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.”
So, what does this have to do with you? Once Adam and Eve disobeyed, they were then depraved in God’s eyes (100% unrighteous) and everything about them was unrighteous. This included what was passed on to their children, like their DNA. Since we are all descended from Adam and Eve, we all share in this depravity.
Adam sinned, so all people are imputed with that sin and its penalty (physical and spiritual death).. Jesus Christ, God the Son, became a man and remained sinless. He accomplished salvation for God’s children so that they would be imputed with righteousness and freed from the guilt of sin.
Romans 5:18-19 “Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”
So, believers in Jesus Christ are redeemed- freed from the debt and the control of sin, and justified- declared righteous and freed from the guilt of sin. Amazing, right? Believe it or not, there is even MORE that God has done for His children in His awesome plan for salvation. We will learn more about it next month!