May 4 Daily Devotional

"That us sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."
     "Romans 5:21.

Devotional

(continued)

Until we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as our salvation there cannot come to us any divine blessing. For God's good pleasure is vouchsafed to men on the ground of His work alone. Even our faith docs not save us. If it did, it would be a work on our part. It is God's free grace in Christ that saves. Our faith, however, accepts the gift which is grounded in Christ's satisfaction for sin.

Ever since the fall of man God has saved fallen creatures only on the basis of this new and better covenant. From the beginning God's Word reveals the same plan of salvation. Immediately after the fall, God gave to Adam the promise of redemption. The seed of the woman (Christ) would bruise the serpent's (Satan's) head. In Christ was fulfilled all that was promised in the Old Testament of the deliverance of God's people. Because of Christ, from the very beginning, there was held out to the faithful the forgiveness of sins, the restoration to the divine favor, the renewing of their hearts, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. What more than this is offered to the saints in the New Testament?

Indeed there is no truth concerning the plan of salvation as it is centered in Christ, the only Mediator between God and man, which Christ and His apostles do not declare to have been revealed from of old. Through Christ and His death men were saved before as well as after His manifestation in the flesh. God set Him forth as a propitiation for the remission of sins that were committed in times past (Rom. 3:25). He is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8).

Yes, faith in the promise of redemption through Christ was the way in which God has ever saved men. No man has ever been justified by works either before or after the coining of Christ. Men have ever been sinners. All their works are sinful works because they proceed from a sinful nature. Men can in no way be justified by them. The only way the just can live is by faith. It is faith in a promise "the promise of redemption from the guilt and power of sin. It is this blessing which was before offered to Abraham that is even now offered to all men in the gospel.

He who stands before God in his own person and on his own works will hear the voice of wrath and condemnation, but he who stands on what God has wrought in His beloved Son is passed from death unto life and cries, "Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."