Right Standing With God

Bridges starts off by saying that the most important question we all face is: How can a sinful man or woman come into a right relationship with an infinitely holy and just God?

After all, Jesus said, "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" Suppose a person lives his entire life experiencing nothing but prosperity and happiness, yet dies without a right relationship with God. What has he gained? Actually, he has lost everything.

For us, justification means that God has forgiven all our sins and accepts us as righteous in His sight.

Romans 3:21-26. "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe." It is through faith in Christ, then, that we experience God's justifying act and enter into a right relationship with Him.

When it comes to justification through faith, Paul is like a dog with a bone. He will not let go. He keeps hammering away on the truth that justification is through faith, not works. He says, "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law."

"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." How then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"

Here is a hymn from the Rock of Ages and one from the Solid Rock which I like.

Nothing in my hands I bring.
Simply to the cross I cling.

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness;
No merit of my own I claim,
But wholly lean on Jesus' name

As we come to Christ, then, empty-handed, claiming no merit of our own, but clinging by faith to His blood and righteousness, we are justified. We pass immediately from a state of condemnation and spiritual death to a state of pardon, acceptance, and the sure hope of eternal life. Our sins are blotted out, and we are "clothed" with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

I want to end with a paragraph that the Princeton Seminary theologian B. B. Warfield wrote:

There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We mst always be accepted for Christ's sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His "blood and righteousness" alone that we can rest.