Romans 5:19: “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”
Let’s break this verse down: One man’s disobedience caused many to be made sinners. This is talking about Adam and his disobedience to God’s command in the Garden of Eden to eat of any tree except the Tree of the Knowledge of God and Evil. Adam didn’t and sin came into the world and we are still impacted by it today. One Man’s obedience causes many to be made righteous. Notice the phrasing. “Will be” is ongoing and many will continue to be made righteous. This one Man is referring to Jesus. He came, was born of a virgin, lived the perfect, sinless life we could not live, and died as our sacrifice to sins forever (Hebrews 10:14) and when we surrender our lives to Him, 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us that we become the righteousness of God through Christ. We deserved punishment and wrath, but because God loves us, He sent His perfect Son to take the punishment and the wrath that we deserved. He imputed the wrath and the punishment we deserved onto Jesus and now if we believe on Him, God will impute righteousness on us and see us as righteous because of what Jesus did. What an unbelievable display of love!
A lot of Christians try to explain away God’s grace and try to insert us in implying that we need to do something to earn the salvation that Romans 5:18 describes as a free gift and it results in our justification or that you can lose your salvation. Many use verses like Hebrews 6:4-6: “4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.” They say, “Aha! The writer of Hebrews admits they can fall away!” But read it again: It’s impossible to renew them again to repentance – in other words to be saved again – because it would be like crucifying Jesus again and putting Him to an open shame, essentially saying His first sactifice wasn’t good enough. Hebrews 10:14 says by one offering, He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. And as we talked about in the blog before this, the word “sanctified” according to the Vine’s Dictionary means, “The separation of the believer from the world in his behavior — by the Father through the Word.” This passage just reinforces that God’s grace is secure.
Some also use Galatians 5:4 to prove you can lose your salvation. It says, “You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.” They say, “HA! See? You can fall from grace.” Read it again: When do you fall from grace? When you try to justify yourself again by the law, by your own efforts, and by your own strength. And by the way, it says you’ve become estranged from Christ and does not say your salvation has been lost. Sometimes we worry so much about losing our salvation or going so far that God won’t love us anymore. Let me ask you this question: What is your salvation dependent on: What you’re doing or what Jesus already did? Romans 5:20-21 says, “20 Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, 21 so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Law entered so that offense or sin would abound, but notice, where sin abounded, grace abounded much more and that grace might reign through Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter how far we think we’ve gone. God’s grace goes further and it stretches to eternity. Romans 5:1 says that having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. If you’re always afraid of losing your salvation, how can you possibly be at peace? The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 that He seals us and gives us the Holy Spirit as a guarantee. If you’ve ever done any kind of canning and maybe you canned some vegetables or fruit or whatever, but you seal it and as long as that seal remains intact, it cannot be contaminated because nothing can break that seal. The same is true about God’s seal for us. When we turn our lives over to Jesus and get saved, we are sealed by God and that seal cannot be broken. If you’re struggling with settling it in your heart that you belong to Jesus, please reach out. God doesn’t want you to wonder if you belong to Him. He wants you to be certain.
Here’s my challenge for this week: Study Romans 5 and 2 Corinthians 5. Try to write a narrative of what “grace” looks like biblically and think about how you can show grace in your own life toward others.
This is part of a summer blog series to re-energize our faith in Christ. Choose the category “Re-Energizing Our Faith” to read more!