Justification by faith...

8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
11 And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
12 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--
13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
15 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.
16 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.
17 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.
18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
19 For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.
20 The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
21 so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 5:8-21

This is a wonderful passage. I have been studying Romans this last week and what a joy it has been. I am going to highlight a few passages from chapter 5 of Romans to show the joy we have in knowing that God sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross to save us wretched sinners from sin, death and the devil. We see this in verse 8, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him." This is amazing, "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." There is nothing that this world can do to take this great gift away. I always think of this great truth when things are tough and I am down. Nothing can happen to me that would remove this gift God has given me.

I want to turn to the relationship between Adam and Jesus from verse 12-19. Leslie C. Allen explains this relationship,

Adam was a pattern, foreshadowing hes future Counterpart: both are heads and inclusive representatives of the human creation, Adam of the old and Christ the new. But Christ is viewed not only as the Second Man, but also as the Servant.

So we see how Paul contrasts the sin of Adam and the saving death of Jesus and what they mean for us. Allen continues,

Paul has reflected upon his OT sources and woven them together with the unifying thread of the work of Christ. The work of the Servant-Man who by His obedience brought righteousness and life to the new humanity in Him is enhanced by setting it against the dark background of Adam's failure and its fatal results for Adam's race

The main focus is the work of Christ. Through Adam we inherited sin and the sinful nature. From our mother's womb we are sinful and in need of a Savior. Through Christ's death and resurrection we receive everlasting life. I will leave you with a quote from Martin Luther in his Preface to Romans,

Next St. Paul makes a digression, a pleasant little side-trip, and relates where both sin and justice, death and life come from. He opposes these two: Adam and Christ. What he wants to say is that Christ, a second Adam, had to come in order to make us heirs of his justice through a new spiritual birth in faith, just as the old Adam made us heirs of sin through the old fleshy birth.

St. Paul proves, by this reasoning, that a person cannot help himself by his works to get from sin to justice any more than he can prevent his own physical birth. St. Paul also proves that the divine law, which should have been well-suited, if anything was, for helping people to obtain justice, not only was no help at all when it did come, but it even increased sin. Evil human nature, consequently, becomes more hostile to it; the more the law forbids it to indulge its own desires, the more it wants to. Thus the law makes Christ all the more necessary and demands more grace to help human nature.

We are saved by Grace alone, through Faith alone, on account of Christ alone.

God's Blessings.

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