Gift of God

Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” This. The beauty of the Gospel. As the beauty of the poem is brought out by the words and their scheme, so much more does the Grace of which was given show the beauty of our God.

How much more is beauty displayed when one reads of the Great Mystery? For Proverbs 17:15 says, “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD.” And yet, Romans 4:5 proclaims, “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.”

How God can feel the weight of being an abomination to His own Being and still justify the wicked is the Great Mystery. I say this to make known that the ways of God are higher than the understanding of mere man. Hebrews 10:14 says, “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.” This contrasts the offerings that were being given up in the place of the sin of those in the Old Testament. For what is found but comfort and joy that Jesus’ mission was completed and He has sat down, in proclamation of His finished work, at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:12)?

Far be it from us to think that we have a hand in this. Romans 5:9- says “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” In one accord, we can all proclaim that we are indeed saved by the blood of Christ.

It is not that we have been helped by the blood, but indeed saved. We shouldn’t be, in the plain sense, “Glad it happened.” But do we truly understand that because of the curse of Adam, we would have been condemned to Hell, without even taking our first breath? Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

However, listen to the beautiful love story…

“But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in Justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:15-17

How then shall we live? Ephesians 2:8-10 says this…

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

So you see, it’s not by works that we have been saved, but for the Glory of God, and the hope that we can praise Him with out works that He works in us – Forsake All