Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
Being made right by his blood means sinners are pardoned and set right with God through Christ's suffering, death and full atoning sacrifice on Calvary, the only way pardon could come, and being saved from wrath through him means those so made right will themselves be delivered by him from final punishment and eternal ruin. This belongs with the surrounding promise that those justified by faith have peace with God through Jesus Christ, access into grace, rejoicing hope, and even joy in tribulation as patience, experience and hope grow through the love of God shed abroad by the Holy Spirit, with God commending his love in that Christ died for sinners and they are reconciled by his death and saved by his life. Its foundation is God's love shown in due time when people were yet without strength, ungodly, sinners, enemies and rebels, in that Christ died for them. That right standing is received by laying hold wholly by living faith on the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour, never by vindicating self or by first meeting conditions, for God calls and draws without condition, and looking to Christ's righteousness clothes, cleanses and empowers the sinner to hate sin and work righteousness. The promise is God's firm word to each person who has confessed and surrendered, to be taken personally by faith and not by feeling with rest and thanksgiving, and the love that gave Christ's life for enemies is to awaken grateful praise and to become the pattern for loving enemies in humility, self-denial and self-sacrificing service.
Meaning in Context
Being now justified by his blood means sinners are pardoned and made right through Christ's suffering and death for them, for without his pardoning blood they must perish. On the cross of Calvary he made a full and complete atonement for the fallen race by dying because of human sin, as the only way pardon could come, with holiness as the fruit of his infinite sacrifice in behalf of sinners. His sacrifice answers the sinner's condemnation and brings salvation.
Being saved from wrath through him means those made right by his blood will themselves be delivered by him from final punishment and eternal ruin. While people were still sinners, estranged from God and enemies to Christ, he gave himself as an offering to save those very enemies, clothing his divinity with humanity and coming to a world seared and marred with the curse, living a poor and self-denying life on earth so that fallen sinners might through his poverty be made rich with eternal treasures. To remain cold, unthankful, unholy and impenitent against such love is detestable ingratitude that heaven looks upon with disfavor.
The verse belongs with the surrounding teaching that those justified by faith have peace with God through Jesus Christ, have access by faith into grace wherein they stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. They even glory in tribulations, knowing tribulation works patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope does not make ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in hearts by the Holy Ghost given. God commends his love in that while people were yet without strength, ungodly and yet sinners, in due time Christ died for them, and being reconciled to God by the death of his Son they shall be saved by his life, joying in God through Jesus Christ by whom the atonement is now received. Justification comes not by vindicating and justifying self, which is of no value, but by faith and by Christ's blood, and those who repent and are thus justified stand as subjects of the kingdom of heaven. This peace through Christ alone is more valuable than material wealth.
The verse joins the gospel of salvation through Christ's atoning blood with the law as one complete testimony, with law and gospel bound together in a perfect whole. Joined to the testimony that belief in the Son gives everlasting life while unbelief leaves the wrath of God abiding, it must be sounded throughout the length and breadth of the world so all may discern the light and walk in the light. Its precious truth will be impressed upon every heart opened to receive it, giving light and understanding to the simple who are contrite in heart. It produces not mere nominal faith or legal religion but purposeful believing that appropriates God's richest gifts and pleads for the gift to give to others.
“Much more” grounds confidence in God's abundant giving and answers the heart's continual desire for more of Christ. As the whole heart is surrendered, the Spirit is given to fill the believer, and each revelation of God enlarges the capacity to know and love him.
Love That Justifies
The promise rests on love commended in due time, when people were yet without strength, ungodly, sinners, enemies of God and a race of rebels against Him, in that Christ died for them. While they were still sinners and His enemies He pledged His sinless life to save them, and His death fully expresses the great love that prompted that infinite sacrifice. In giving His Son, God made a way for Christ in His humanity to grasp divinity, so that human nature having overcome may through faith grasp the divine nature.
With love as His only obligation, Christ voluntarily pledged Himself to bear the punishment due transgressors, enduring every pang and indignity without murmur. Step by step He descended the path of humiliation and suffering, clothing His divinity with humanity and coming to a world seared and marred with the curse. He left the courts of glory to partake of temptation and hardship, living a poor and self-denying life amid bitter opposition and reproach from His own, to lift fallen sinners up and make them sons and daughters of God. He died a death of shame on the cross to purchase the privilege of saving His enemies from eternal ruin, to grant fallen humanity a probation of test and trial, and to give value to every repenting and believing sinner by imputing the merit of His spotless righteousness, humbling Himself to the lowest depths to lift them to purity, holiness and completeness and to pour His fullness and riches into poverty-stricken souls.
Justification by His blood is received by laying hold wholly and entirely by living faith upon the merits of the blood of the crucified and risen Saviour, not by vindicating and justifying self, which is of no value. Salvation is never received by meeting conditions to come to Christ, for God calls and draws the sinner by Christ's invitation with no condition. The sinner comes because the law has been transgressed, and Christ died because the law was transgressed, and looking to Christ's righteousness as the only thing that can cleanse from sins clothes him with Christ's righteousness. That righteousness alone makes virtue in him and imparts power and strength so he hates the sins that caused the suffering of the Son of God and does not want to sin, and then he works the works of righteousness. Even those sincerely striving to keep God's law fall through deceptive temptation, and when conscience condemns them in the light of the law they do not war against the law that condemns them but repent of sin and seek pardon through Christ's merit.
Those who accept the ransom Jesus paid are given emancipation papers to be declared in the very face of the enemy, giving mastery over Satan and freedom from bondage to sin and from every entanglement of Satan. Genuine conversion brings not only forgiveness when the sinner repents and confesses but adoption as a child of God, a member of the royal family, an heir of God and joint-heir with Christ to an immortal inheritance, with the power of Satan broken. By beholding Christ the believer is changed into His image and brought into sacred unity with Him, completely identified with Him and made one with Him, reconciled to God by the death of His Son and saved by His life, receiving the atonement and joying in God through the Lord Jesus Christ, even joying in tribulation as a partaker of His sufferings in this life and hereafter of His glory. The promised work foreshadowed in types, offerings and prophecies also brings sanctification through the Spirit, with Son and Spirit working together in the soul. Christ's atoning merits and righteousness are the ground of salvation and saving strength, and trust in His righteousness and death gives assurance of God's favor and brings peace. In times of despair believers are to rely solely on the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour, and those who do so will not perish. Forgiveness comes through Christ as propitiation and deliverer, not through payment for pardons, condemning sin rather than licensing it.
Assurance for Daily Life
Those made right by his blood shall be saved from wrath through him is God's firm promise spoken to each person, revealing his glory, which is his character. That promise belongs by faith and not by feeling to one who has confessed sin and surrendered to God, giving rest and peace and certainty that God has forgiven and Christ receives him even when he does not feel it. It is to be received personally and held by faith with heart and soul and voice and thanksgiving, putting an end to querulous complaint and murmuring. Receiving it calls for walking by faith and not by sight, ceasing to think of self and thinking of the might of his grace and the compassion of Christ.
Receiving Christ's saving power calls for giving oneself to God and coming into harmony with his conditions through obedience. God's infinite tender love is proved daily by Christ giving his precious life for his enemies, with continual benefits, tenderness, love and forbearance seeking to impress the heart and teach love. Meditating on his goodness and on his kindness in giving Christ's life while people were still enemies should produce loving gratitude, praise and thanksgiving, arts to be cultivated as more precious to Jesus than all the gold and silver of earth. Such gratitude sympathizes with neighbors and makes their interests its own and closes the avenues of the soul to Satan's suggestions.
Indifference to his favors and entreaties is contrary to that love, as are severity toward those supposed to be in error, sensitiveness to blame, hints and sharp criticism while blind to one's own failings, and forgetting all God's favors through enmity and hatred and strife like quarrelsome children. This holds even among those who profess the same Father, the same immortal home, the same solemn faith and testing message, and who are engaged in the same branch of work. Christ died for men while they were still his enemies, a race of rebels against him, pledging his sinless life to save them and dying a death of shame on the cross to purchase the privilege of saving them, fully expressing the great love that prompted an infinite sacrifice. His self-giving love is the pattern Christians are to follow by loving their enemies.
Those who claim to be servants of Jesus Christ, sons and daughters of God, are to show appreciation by following his example of humility, self-denial and self-sacrifice, lifting the cross and following him. Those who follow him must follow his example in daily life, undertaking no work or enterprise for human praise or honor, nor speaking one word or doing one action that would lower in the minds of others the high ideal they have of him. Those who will not follow the Lamb of God in this way will never be overcomers. Because he labored for unbelievers, leaving the courts of glory to partake of temptation and hardship in this world to lift them up and make them sons and daughters of God, believers must take up their appointed work wherever they are, watch for souls, become acquainted with the spiritual needs of unbelieving friends and neighbors, and work for them in meekness and lowliness of heart to bring a strong counterinfluence against evil.
Being made right by his blood means sinners are pardoned and set right with God through Christ's suffering, death and full atoning sacrifice on Calvary, the only way pardon could come, and being saved from wrath through him means those so made right will themselves be delivered by him from final punishment and eternal ruin.
This belongs with the surrounding promise that those justified by faith have peace with God through Jesus Christ, access into grace, rejoicing hope, and even joy in tribulation as patience, experience and hope grow through the love of God shed abroad by the Holy Spirit, with God commending his love in that Christ died for sinners and they are reconciled by his death and saved by his life.
Its foundation is God's love shown in due time when people were yet without strength, ungodly, sinners, enemies and rebels, in that Christ died for them.
That right standing is received by laying hold wholly by living faith on the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour, never by vindicating self or by first meeting conditions, for God calls and draws without condition, and looking to Christ's righteousness clothes, cleanses and empowers the sinner to hate sin and work righteousness.
The promise is God's firm word to each person who has confessed and surrendered, to be taken personally by faith and not by feeling with rest and thanksgiving, and the love that gave Christ's life for enemies is to awaken grateful praise and to become the pattern for loving enemies in humility, self-denial and self-sacrificing service.
Meaning in Context
Being now justified by his blood means sinners are pardoned and made right through Christ's suffering and death for them, for without his pardoning blood they must perish. On the cross of Calvary he made a full and complete atonement for the fallen race by dying because of human sin, as the only way pardon could come, with holiness as the fruit of his infinite sacrifice in behalf of sinners. His sacrifice answers the sinner's condemnation and brings salvation.
Being saved from wrath through him means those made right by his blood will themselves be delivered by him from final punishment and eternal ruin. While people were still sinners, estranged from God and enemies to Christ, he gave himself as an offering to save those very enemies, clothing his divinity with humanity and coming to a world seared and marred with the curse, living a poor and self-denying life on earth so that fallen sinners might through his poverty be made rich with eternal treasures. To remain cold, unthankful, unholy and impenitent against such love is detestable ingratitude that heaven looks upon with disfavor.
The verse belongs with the surrounding teaching that those justified by faith have peace with God through Jesus Christ, have access by faith into grace wherein they stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. They even glory in tribulations, knowing tribulation works patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope does not make ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in hearts by the Holy Ghost given. God commends his love in that while people were yet without strength, ungodly and yet sinners, in due time Christ died for them, and being reconciled to God by the death of his Son they shall be saved by his life, joying in God through Jesus Christ by whom the atonement is now received. Justification comes not by vindicating and justifying self, which is of no value, but by faith and by Christ's blood, and those who repent and are thus justified stand as subjects of the kingdom of heaven. This peace through Christ alone is more valuable than material wealth.
The verse joins the gospel of salvation through Christ's atoning blood with the law as one complete testimony, with law and gospel bound together in a perfect whole. Joined to the testimony that belief in the Son gives everlasting life while unbelief leaves the wrath of God abiding, it must be sounded throughout the length and breadth of the world so all may discern the light and walk in the light. Its precious truth will be impressed upon every heart opened to receive it, giving light and understanding to the simple who are contrite in heart. It produces not mere nominal faith or legal religion but purposeful believing that appropriates God's richest gifts and pleads for the gift to give to others.
“Much more” grounds confidence in God's abundant giving and answers the heart's continual desire for more of Christ. As the whole heart is surrendered, the Spirit is given to fill the believer, and each revelation of God enlarges the capacity to know and love him.
Love That Justifies
The promise rests on love commended in due time, when people were yet without strength, ungodly, sinners, enemies of God and a race of rebels against Him, in that Christ died for them. While they were still sinners and His enemies He pledged His sinless life to save them, and His death fully expresses the great love that prompted that infinite sacrifice. In giving His Son, God made a way for Christ in His humanity to grasp divinity, so that human nature having overcome may through faith grasp the divine nature.
With love as His only obligation, Christ voluntarily pledged Himself to bear the punishment due transgressors, enduring every pang and indignity without murmur. Step by step He descended the path of humiliation and suffering, clothing His divinity with humanity and coming to a world seared and marred with the curse. He left the courts of glory to partake of temptation and hardship, living a poor and self-denying life amid bitter opposition and reproach from His own, to lift fallen sinners up and make them sons and daughters of God. He died a death of shame on the cross to purchase the privilege of saving His enemies from eternal ruin, to grant fallen humanity a probation of test and trial, and to give value to every repenting and believing sinner by imputing the merit of His spotless righteousness, humbling Himself to the lowest depths to lift them to purity, holiness and completeness and to pour His fullness and riches into poverty-stricken souls.
Justification by His blood is received by laying hold wholly and entirely by living faith upon the merits of the blood of the crucified and risen Saviour, not by vindicating and justifying self, which is of no value. Salvation is never received by meeting conditions to come to Christ, for God calls and draws the sinner by Christ's invitation with no condition. The sinner comes because the law has been transgressed, and Christ died because the law was transgressed, and looking to Christ's righteousness as the only thing that can cleanse from sins clothes him with Christ's righteousness. That righteousness alone makes virtue in him and imparts power and strength so he hates the sins that caused the suffering of the Son of God and does not want to sin, and then he works the works of righteousness. Even those sincerely striving to keep God's law fall through deceptive temptation, and when conscience condemns them in the light of the law they do not war against the law that condemns them but repent of sin and seek pardon through Christ's merit.
Those who accept the ransom Jesus paid are given emancipation papers to be declared in the very face of the enemy, giving mastery over Satan and freedom from bondage to sin and from every entanglement of Satan. Genuine conversion brings not only forgiveness when the sinner repents and confesses but adoption as a child of God, a member of the royal family, an heir of God and joint-heir with Christ to an immortal inheritance, with the power of Satan broken. By beholding Christ the believer is changed into His image and brought into sacred unity with Him, completely identified with Him and made one with Him, reconciled to God by the death of His Son and saved by His life, receiving the atonement and joying in God through the Lord Jesus Christ, even joying in tribulation as a partaker of His sufferings in this life and hereafter of His glory. The promised work foreshadowed in types, offerings and prophecies also brings sanctification through the Spirit, with Son and Spirit working together in the soul. Christ's atoning merits and righteousness are the ground of salvation and saving strength, and trust in His righteousness and death gives assurance of God's favor and brings peace. In times of despair believers are to rely solely on the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour, and those who do so will not perish. Forgiveness comes through Christ as propitiation and deliverer, not through payment for pardons, condemning sin rather than licensing it.
Assurance for Daily Life
Those made right by his blood shall be saved from wrath through him is God's firm promise spoken to each person, revealing his glory, which is his character. That promise belongs by faith and not by feeling to one who has confessed sin and surrendered to God, giving rest and peace and certainty that God has forgiven and Christ receives him even when he does not feel it. It is to be received personally and held by faith with heart and soul and voice and thanksgiving, putting an end to querulous complaint and murmuring. Receiving it calls for walking by faith and not by sight, ceasing to think of self and thinking of the might of his grace and the compassion of Christ.
Receiving Christ's saving power calls for giving oneself to God and coming into harmony with his conditions through obedience. God's infinite tender love is proved daily by Christ giving his precious life for his enemies, with continual benefits, tenderness, love and forbearance seeking to impress the heart and teach love. Meditating on his goodness and on his kindness in giving Christ's life while people were still enemies should produce loving gratitude, praise and thanksgiving, arts to be cultivated as more precious to Jesus than all the gold and silver of earth. Such gratitude sympathizes with neighbors and makes their interests its own and closes the avenues of the soul to Satan's suggestions.
Indifference to his favors and entreaties is contrary to that love, as are severity toward those supposed to be in error, sensitiveness to blame, hints and sharp criticism while blind to one's own failings, and forgetting all God's favors through enmity and hatred and strife like quarrelsome children. This holds even among those who profess the same Father, the same immortal home, the same solemn faith and testing message, and who are engaged in the same branch of work. Christ died for men while they were still his enemies, a race of rebels against him, pledging his sinless life to save them and dying a death of shame on the cross to purchase the privilege of saving them, fully expressing the great love that prompted an infinite sacrifice. His self-giving love is the pattern Christians are to follow by loving their enemies.
Those who claim to be servants of Jesus Christ, sons and daughters of God, are to show appreciation by following his example of humility, self-denial and self-sacrifice, lifting the cross and following him. Those who follow him must follow his example in daily life, undertaking no work or enterprise for human praise or honor, nor speaking one word or doing one action that would lower in the minds of others the high ideal they have of him. Those who will not follow the Lamb of God in this way will never be overcomers. Because he labored for unbelievers, leaving the courts of glory to partake of temptation and hardship in this world to lift them up and make them sons and daughters of God, believers must take up their appointed work wherever they are, watch for souls, become acquainted with the spiritual needs of unbelieving friends and neighbors, and work for them in meekness and lowliness of heart to bring a strong counterinfluence against evil.