God’s Plan of Redemption
Dearly beloved of God, the justice of God is by the believing of Jesus Christ to all who believe on him.
Every one of us were previously dead in sin; we did not have spirit life, and we came short of the glory of God. We were all guilty before Him.
In spite of being dead in sin, ungodly, and enemies of God, God sent His Son to redeem us, to reconcile us to Himself, and to save us.
If we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son when we were enemies, then much more, having been reconciled, we shall be delivered from wrath by his life.
We were justified freely by God’s grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God set forth His Son as the place of reconciliation. God determined this; it was His idea, not ours.
God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ paid for the sin and the death that Adam brought upon mankind by giving his life for ours. The one without sin died in the place of those who were dead in sin.
God accepted Jesus Christ’s sacrifice as the offering for sin on our behalf, and He offered mankind salvation by confessing Jesus as lord, and believing that God raised him from the dead. Such grace!
It is by grace we are saved through believing, and this salvation is not from ourselves: it is the gift of God. It is not of our works, but by Jesus Christ’s works so that no one may boast. He did what we could not.
Dearly beloved, we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus on the basis of good works that God previously prepared for the Christ to accomplish so that we may walk in his accomplishments.
In Christ, we are now the children of God, and highly favored in God’s sight. God determined that by His grace we would share in Jesus Christ’s accomplishments.
It was the good pleasure of His Will for us to be identified with Jesus Christ, and what he accomplished in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating in the heavenly realm.
Our standing before God is in Christ’s standing before Him. That’s right, our standing before God is in Christ’s standing before Him.
We were justified from sin by his sacrifice for sin. God made Jesus Christ who did not know sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
We are sanctified by the spirit the Christ poured out. In Christ, we are holy and without blame before God.
In Christ, and by his work, we have access to God as our Father. We are born of the spirit from God that he poured out, and we have free access to Him with boldness and confidence.
The spirit witnesses to our inner being that we are the children of God, and if children heirs, and joint heirs with Christ.
It is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We will acquire the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ when he gathers us up to meet him in the air, and so shall we always be with the Lord.
What could we have possibly done to be worthy of these exceeding riches of God’s grace?
There was nothing good in our flesh; we were dead in sin. What good work could we possibly have done to have created spirit life in us? To even ask the question is absurd.
The plan of redemption was determined by God. It was the good pleasure of His Will to send His Son to accomplish it for us, and to freely give us everything he accomplished by His grace because of His great love for us.
God determined the plan of redemption. He called us in Christ, and those whom He called He justified, and those whom He justified, He glorified.
He Who spared not His own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how will He not also feely give us all things with him? Such great grace!
He determined beforehand that we will be conformed to the image of His Son! Oh, what glory awaits us. Rejoice forevermore!
Dearly beloved, take God at His Word; believe who you are in Christ, and what you have in him. The plan of redemption was God’s idea, and all of it is by His grace. What do we have that we did not receive?
Dearly beloved, grow in the grace, and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Keep yourself in the love of God.