Verse of the day: Just and justifying the one who has faith (Romans 3. 26).
“So justified by faith, do we have peace with God? (Romans 5. 1). Conscience no longer accuses us. Now the judgment decides in favor and not against the sinner. The memory looks back, considers the sins committed and feels pain for them. However, he is not afraid of a penalty. Christ paid the debt of his people to the last penny and received the divine discharge. Unless God is so unjust that he demands the payment of the same debt twice, no soul for whom Christ died as a substitute can be sent to hell. Believing that God is just is one of the principles of our enlightened nature. We know this to be true and it is wonderful that this belief becomes the pillar of our confidence and our peace! If God is just, I, a sinner, alone and without a substitute? I must be punished. But Jesus took my place and suffered the punishment for me. Now, if God is just, I, a permanent sinner in Christ, can never be punished. God would have to change his nature before any soul for whom Jesus died as a substitute would face the condemnation of the Law. Therefore, Jesus having taken the place of the believer, having restored totality equivalent to divine wrath for all what his people must have suffered for sin, the sinner can cry out in glorious triumph: “Who will bring accusation against God’s elect?” (Romans 8. 33). It won’t be God, because He justified them. Is it not Christ, because he died or rather rose again? (v. 34). My hope is alive, not because I am not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died. My confidence is not in the fact that I am holy, but in this wicked being, Christ is my righteousness. My faith is not based on what I am or what I will be, or what I know or feel; but in what Christ is, as well as in what he has done and does now for me. In the lion of justice, the beautiful virgin of hope stands as a queen.