Jesus Christ is Grace

Jesus Christ is grace. It’s our belief in him that gives us our blessed hope.  Christ did it all so that we could have eternal life in heaven.  Christ became sin, to cover our sin.  He became a curse that we could be free from the curse.  He shed his blood to cover our sin once and for all.  We can do nothing to merit favor with God, except through Christ.

John 14:6  Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.   This verse tells us that Christ is the only way to come before the Father.  Jesus Christ is the truth and the life.  It’s only through his life that we can gain righteousness.  When we accept Christ as our Lord, God washes away all our past sins, and cloaks us with Christ righteousness.

Romans 3:21-4:3  But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference (between Jew and Gentile):  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation (the act of God whereby he becomes gracious to the sinner through Jesus Christ) through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded.  By what law? Of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision by faith.  Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.  What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture?  Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

Romans 1:16  For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.  When you read this verse, don’t stop at the word ashamed, but meditate on the word power.  The gospel of Christ is the power of God to salvation.  And the Gospel is:

I Corinthians 15:1 – 4  Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.  For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:  

Love covers sin

Faith, grace, righteousness and love. 

These are the four things that Paul teaches over and over again.  The law that God gave to Moses was good, but it couldn’t bring salvation.  Only the blood of Christ can do that.  After Christ died on the cross, he fulfilled the law of Moses.  Now we are under a new covenant with God.  Paul describes it as the same one that Abraham had.  Abraham lived over 400 years before God gave the law to Moses, yet Abraham was saved by Gods grace and made righteous because he believed God.  This is now the system we are under.  Not law.

Concerning Abraham, God tells us this:  Romans 4: 21 – 25  And (Abraham) being fully persuaded that, what he (God) had promised, he was able also to perform.  And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.  Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

Romans 8: 10 – 11  And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.  But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken (make alive) your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

Paul tells us that now on this side of the cross in I Corinthians 13:13  And now abideth faith, hope, charity (love), these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

We believe that by the grace of God, he sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for our sin, and that Christ was crucified and died and rose the third day.  And by believing this God imputes to us the righteousness of Christ.  God showed us his love for us by allowing his Son to die for our sins.   It is not your love for God that blesses you, but it is Gods love for you.

I John 4: 7 – 21  Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.  In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.  Herin is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

Proverbs 10:12  Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.

Galatians 5:6  For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision (Jewish) availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision (Gentile): but faith which worketh by love.

I John 3:1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.