◄ What Does Romans 3:29 Mean? ►

It is by God's grace that we have been saved, and it is because God is both merciful and righteous that Christ had to die to pay the price for our sin. We were lost in sin and separated from God, but Jesus took the full punishment for our sin. No man who has been saved by grace has any occasion to boast. Our salvation is totally provided and paid for by God Himself. Man can add nothing to Christ's finished work and not one of us can do anything to merit God's favour. We do not deserve forgiveness or eternal life, and yet by His grace, through faith, we have been eternally saved and fully forgiven. Praise His holy name.

Salvation is exclusively and eternally given on the one condition that God has implemented: FAITH. Salvation is by faith alone in Christ's finished work ALONE. Fallen man can do nothing to make himself more acceptable to God and there is nothing that fallen man can offer to add to Christ's finished work on the Cross. Man is justified by faith alone, and that means that salvation is apart from any deeds of the law or any legalistic requirements. Indeed, the amazing offer of salvation is available to anyone who will simply believe in Christ's sacrifice of Himself for their sin, whether they be Jew or Gentile.

Before the Cross, a Gentile who believed in God had to seek His forgiveness by becoming a Jewish proselyte and carefully following all the Jewish rites, customs, feasts, and ordinances. Sins were only covered by the blood of a sacrificed animal on a temporary basis, until God's perfect sacrifice was sent to pay the price of our sin in full. Jews and Jewish proselyte were temporarily covered by the blood of a slaughtered animal, but full remission of sins necessitated the shed blood of the unique Kinsman-Redeemer: the eternal Son of God Who, as the perfect Son of Man, was the only acceptable sacrifice for sin.

But there were an increasing number of legalistic Jews who continued to argue that Gentiles were outside of God's grace and could not receive His forgiveness without becoming a proselyte and abiding by Jewish rites, customs, feasts, and ordinances. Gentiles were denigrated and considered an inferior group of people to God's chosen nation of Israel. But this was not the teaching of Paul or Christ's other apostles, for they all made it clear that God's grace and His salvation is not exclusive to the Jewish nation, but that He is equally God and Saviour of Gentiles sinners too.

Being born a Jew or born a Gentile made no difference as regards salvation, for His grace extends to all people without racial discrimination, national favoritisms, or class differences. Jews and Gentiles are one in Christ and are all adopted as God's own children and all are given equal access and equal privileges.

Although He came as Israel's Messiah, the Lord Jesus did not die for one group of people or for one specific race or nation. He died to pay the price for the sin for all humanity. God's free gift of salvation was not only for the Jews but reaches out to whosoever will believe on the name of the only begotten Son of God, whether they are Jew or Gentile, for all have equal access to His goodness and grace and all receive His forgiveness and life everlasting, by faith in Jesus Christ the righteousness.

In the power of the Spirit, Paul offered the most thorough and convincing arguments: that because man is justified by faith in Christ alone, apart from works of law, that justification was not only for the Jew but also for the Gentile. Praise God that Paul let us know that there is one God who will justify all mankind in the one and only way He made it possible: by grace through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord. For He justifies the circumcised Jews, and He also justifies the uncircumcised Gentiles by grace, through faith.

Heavenly Father, thank You that by grace through faith, we have been received into your family and been given the free gift of salvation, spirit, soul, and body. Thank You that You are not only God of the Jews, but also God of the Gentiles. You did not only die for one race of mankind, but for all people. Thank You that I too have been saved by grace through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, in Whose name I pray, AMEN.