Justification by Faith and it’s rewards

The purpose of Jesus death and resurrection was to create a way for us human beings who have continuously and consistently sinned against God, to be reconciled to our creator, our Father. As Paul says in Romans that sin came by one man and so will by one man all be saved. Jesus through his death, paid the complete ransom for us and removed us from death row and gave us a way back to eternal life. God is just and for the sins that we committed, we had and we were on our way to eternal death but Jesus died on our behalf. Now, all that God requires is the believe in his Son. 

When we believe, God justifies us through that faith in Jesus. God makes us holy and blameless through our faith in Jesus Christ.

There are 6 things that justification by faith has given us, peace with God, grace of God, hope of the glory of God, Holy Spirit, salvation and reconciliation with God. Let’s look at each one of these.

The word justified is a Greek word dikaioo, from the word dikaio which means just, righteous. Verbs which end in- oo generally indicate bringing out that which a person is or that which is desired, but not usually referring to the mode in which the action takes place. In the case of dikaioo, it means to bring out the fact that a person is righteous. In the above verse then justified by faith would therefore mean that our faith in Jesus has made us righteous. When we believed with our hearts that Jesus is our saviour and Lord, we were made righteous through that faith. Our faith brought out righteousness from inside out.

When we were justified by this faith, we then obtained peace (the amplified translation defines peace as a perfect well- being, all necessary good, all spiritual prosperity, and freedom from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts) with God. One can ask wether this means we were at war with God before we were justified. The answer would be that although we might not have been at war with God, God was at war with us because we were sinners and God promised us his wrath. Been justified by faith meant that God was no longer at war but at peace with us now that we have repented and turned our backs on sin.

Through him, meaning Jesus, we also obtained access by faith into God’s grace. The word grace means an undeserved favor, meaning that we are getting from God what we don’t deserve. We are getting from God what we did nothing to deserve. The word access in Greek is the word “prosagoge” meaning being granted the right to approach. The word stand in Greek is the word “histemi” meaning to remain in or to be established. So, therefore, the verse means that through this very same faith that gave us peace with God, we also were granted the right to approach the underseved favour granted to us by God in which we now remain or are established in. 

Instead of complaining about the suffering that we go through, we actually rejoice in those sufferings. One can say but why would someone rejoice in his sufferings, is that normal? Well if you are a Christian it is very normal because we know that sufferings produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope never puts us to shame. Why because God’s love has been poured on us through the Holy Spirit that we recieved when we beleived. If you suffer and you overcome, the more you can overcome, the more you build endurance or perseverance. The more you can endure, you will build character meaning that you will be stronger in faith. The stronger your faith, the more hope you have. This hope has never put anyone to shame and it will not put us to shame because God’s love was not given to us but was poured in us through the Holy Spirit and through this amazing love, we overcome all.