God has faith in you
This is very important to remember. It is not your faith in God that saves you and makes you God’s child. It’s God’s faith in you that saved you.
As the Apostle write: We love God because God first loved us.
The apostle used the phrase “ the faith of Jesus Christ” or its equivalent eight times in the apostles: Rom. 3:22; Gal. 2:16; 3: 22; Phil. 3:9; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 4:13; Rom. 3:26; Eph. 3:12 — as preserves in the King James Version.
How do we get righteous?
“ 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.”
Romans 3:21–22 KJV
The blogger Ian Potts expands on this perfectly:
“In Romans 3:21 we read of the revelation or manifestation of the righteousness of God in the Gospel — the glorious ‘but now’ of Romans 3. This wonderful, foundational, truth of the Gospel through which the sinner is justified by having the very righteousness of God imputed to him as a result of the death of Christ on his behalf is expounded from Romans 3:21 to 26. In verse 22 we read of just how the righteousness of God is brought to light in the gospel.”
How was this righteousness manifested? How did God reveal His righteousness in the Gospel? He revealed it by the “faith of Jesus Christ”. It was the faith of Christ which brought the righteousness of God to light in the Gospel. A glorious truth — but one so often overlooked and neglected by many. This phrase “by faith of Jesus Christ” is very significant, and is one that we find repeated in several other passages of scripture in various forms. For example in Galatians 2:16, a passage which also refers to our justification through the work of God in Christ, we read the following:
“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”
This is, as he goes on to say, a glorious truth.
“Does it really mean that the righteousness of God is manifested by the faith of Jesus Christ (Romans 3:21–22)? That we are justified by the faith of Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:16)?
Yes. That is precisely the meaning of the passages. It is the faith of Jesus Christ which brought to light the righteousness of God, by which we are justified. The righteousness of God was manifested, revealed, brought to light, by the faith of Jesus Christ.
But one may answer that we are justified by the blood of Christ, by His death on the cross. And that is quite true — we are. But Christ’s death on the cross, His blood-shedding was a work of faith, an act of faith. It was the “obedience of faith”. Not obedience to the law, but the obedience of faith. The law didn’t demand that one lay down his life for another — but Christ’s faith revealed such love for His people, that while they were yet sinners He laid down His life for them. It is this which we see in the Gospel. It was by faith that He lived (“The just shall live by faith” Romans 1:17) and by faith that He died (Hebrews 12:2). Hence we are justified by the faith of Jesus Christ. By that substitutionary death which He died as an act of faith on behalf of those people whom He loved and gave Himself for (Galatians 2:20).”
There is nothing that will give you greater freedom than to understand this truth: God has faith in you, and it is that — and ONLY that — which saves you, not your faith.
All you need to do is believe. And accept.
And rest.
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