ROMANS 3:21-6:23
THE SAVED AND THE LOST
THE SAVED
THESE PEOPLE ARE SAVED BY THE GRACE OF GOD
1, These people are saved originally by grace. Grace is unmerited favor, God’s riches at Christ’s expense. Before God laid the foundations of the world, God chose these people to be saved. They are the elect. They were chosen not for any goodness in them, but in accordance with God’s sovereign purposes in election, Some things about grace and election God has revealed to us, and therefore we can understand them. Other things God has not revealed, and therefore we cannot understand them. Because God is the kind of God He is, we believe that election is not only fair, but loving and wonderful. Grace motivates these people to do the law of God from the heart.
2. These people are saved judicially by God. These people confess that they are sinners. God justifies sinners; He justifies the ungodly. God declares ungodly sinners just.
a. Salvation past — justification — is salvation from the penalty of sin.
b. Salvation present — sanctification — is being saved
from the power of sin.
c. Salvation future — glorification - is being saved from the very presence of sin.
3. These people are saved meritoriously by the blood of Christ. The death of Christ was eternal in nature, and therefore covered the sins of people who believed before the death of Christ, and of people who had not even been born, but would be born, and would believe,
4. These people are saved instrumentally by faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ, a gift from God, is the instrument by which these people lay hold of eternal life. It is not the amount of faith, but the object of faith — namely, Jesus Christ, Who saves.
5. These people are saved evidentially by the works of faith. The works of faith are the evidence or proof that their faith is real, that it comes as a gift from God, not something they have merely professed or tried to generate on their own.
THE LOST
THESE PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO BE SAVED BY THEIR OWN WORKS
1. These people are foolishly trying to be saved by their own works, by the works of the flesh, or by the works of the Law of Moses. There is no salvation this way. God never intended that the Law of Moses be a method of salvation, The law of Moses was intended to lead Jewish people to Christ.
2. These people foolishly justify themselves. They think that they do not need the grace of God. They refuse to admit that they are sinners in need of repentance and the death of Christ. They make excuses for themselves and others, not realizing that all people are without excuse.
3. These people foolishly think that something in them will merit their salvation. They are paid what they merit. The wages of sin is death.
4. These people may have faith, but it is faith in the wrong thing or the wrong person. They refuse really to believe in Jesus Christ. They will go to hell for their rejection of Christ, even though God is not willing that any should perish.
5. These people are lost because they do not have a real faith in Jesus Christ. Like the devil they may believe in Jesus. But they have never really committed their lives to Jesus Christ, and their works of the flesh demonstrate that.
