"Christ's giving of himself satisfied the demands of the Father's justice against us. He did it alone; we played no part in it whatsoever. Justification, however, includes us and our faith in a way propitiation did not. We must believe in order to be justified...Justification is something God does for us, and yet he does it through the instrumentality of our faith-not in any way because of our faith, but it is by faith that we take hold of and appropriate the gift of justification. The great application of this study, therefore, is that you believe. Believe that Jesus was so raised, and believe that he was so raised so that you would be justified before God. Friend, if you would be saved, you must believe this message to be the truth, and you must trust God...you are only justified when you believe. The nature of this saving, justifying faith is not merely a historical faith-'Oh yes, I think that happened.' No, justifying faith is trust in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, reliance on him as your only substitutionary Savior."
Mark Dever, It Is Well
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment