This We Believe
Justification by Faith
by Robert* H. McCollum, Ed.D. Assoc. Prof, of Physical Education compels him to prefer the base, the sensual, the immediate self-satisfac tion; while willingly rejecting the beautiful, the spiritual, the eternal promises of the Father’s glory. Paul discusses this sad state in his Epistle to the Romans: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.2 What a sad state for man—eternal separation from God because of sin.4 But our Heavenly Father, while pos sessing a nature of divine justice, also possesses a nature of forgiving love to the sinner who truly repents for his willful and wanton transgressions. St. John’s Gospel tells us: “ For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever be- lieveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, be cause their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.” 2 Note the use of the word believe in that passage. It is this faith in God’s 16
B ein g th erefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1). As a lay member of the body of Christ, without any formal theological background, I find it a delight to in vestigate the areas of normal Chris tian living and learn what the Word of God has to feed the believer’s soul. For man to pursue the normal Chris tian life several conditions must pre vail: forgiveness of sins, justification by faith, and peace with God. To deter mine whether the attainment of the conditions of forgiveness, justification and peace are really worth considering requires some knowledge of God and His plan of creation. The first chapters of Genesis tell us that “in the beginning God created heaven and the earth1 . . . And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” What an ideal blessed state for our first ancestors: created in God’s image, a living soul having daily fellowship with the Creator, given worthwhile oc cupation of responsibility for all the others of God’s creations. But Adam and Eve deliberately dis obeyed God, they sinned.2 As a result of this disobedience to God’s command, man acquired a sin- nature compulsion; that is, he inherited an innate aspect of personality that
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