Christ came to the law keepers first, to show the truth of God’s promises. God fulfilled those promises in the Messiah by fulfilling the law for them, something which they could not accomplish.
What a blessing it is to be assured of eternity. Jesus gave us this assurance when he said that whoever believes his word and in the one who sent him has eternal life.
What a burden it is to fulfill the law on our own. Who can keep the law? Is there anyone who can satisfy the demands of the law?
Sometimes, even the simplest things are spun into complexities, the clearest teaching of Christ turned to sophistry, the clarity of orthodoxy twisted to heresy.
We are made children of God through his grace. We were not born to his house but have been reborn and adopted by his merciful will (Eph 1:5). Therefore we have hope.
I never understood why the rules of baseball allow a pinch runner. A coach is allowed to substitute a faster runner and remove the slower runner from the game. That does not seem fair.
Jesus warned keepers of the law that the wrath of God was coming (Matt 3:7). The Pharisees already did not like Jesus, and this did not make them any happier.
“Look toward heaven.” When we look to ourselves, we tend to get in trouble. Initially, Abram believed God’s promise of a son.
It is good to be reminded and to have the point driven home again and again. For we are easily led astray, imagining that we must do something to reconcile God, since we imagine he must be angry about our sins.
We inherit the kingdom through faith, just as an orphan receives a new family. When a child is adopted, she must follow her new family through the orphanage doors.
The word “atonement” translated in Romans 5:11 in the Geneva and King James versions is abandoned in subsequent New Testament translations...
God wants us to live lives that reflect his own holiness and are in keeping with the regeneration that comes to us through faith.
It is not the severity of our religious observances or the long list of our good works over a lifetime that makes us fit and worthy for the kingdom of God.
The Scriptures are very clear. We believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ by the grace of God. We are God’s children because he has chosen us, not because we have chosen him.
How may one know that they are forgiven of their sins, reborn, and are now children of God? Can this be determined because one has always lived correctly?
We are to produce fruit in keeping with repentance (Matt 3:8; Luke 3:8). Yet we do not pin our hope of salvation upon these works.
All things are clean to you if you are clean within and without, bathed on the inside and the outside, washed in faith and in action.
If you are not clean on the inside, your outside will never be clean, despite regular religious washings. These outward ceremonies do not cleanse the person who is unclean within.
Common sense informs us that giving from the heart means one expects to gain nothing from the gift. When one gives from within...
If we only read verse 8, we may end up believing good works are the point, that we must “be careful to devote [ourselves] to good works” (Titus 3:8).
Our works are not good works—they do not please God—unless they are done in faith. They are not good works, no matter how fine they may seem to us...
Because Christ is the once-for-all sacrifice for sin, those living under the New Covenant are to offer sacrifices of praise to God.
The Father sent his Son into the world to save sinners from the condemnation of sin and death. When people have faith in God’s sacrifice for their sin, they are saved, justified, and reborn.
The great mystery of the ages has been revealed in Jesus Christ. All people—Jews and Gentiles alike—have been redeemed from their slavery to sin and death by the atoning work of Jesus.
The promise of forgiveness is bound to repentance. They are inseparable. “Repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations.”
