| “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” |
| —Romans 3:23-24 |
I always cringe when I hear someone cavalierly say the words, “Well, I know I’m going to Hell!” Such a one talks about the place of eternal damnation like it might be a specially chosen location at the most beautiful sandy beach on earth. Of course, this is absolutely not the case.
Hell is someplace to fear—literally fear. “Well, I know I’ll have lots of company!” that same person opines. But, he or she doesn’t realize that as best as we can learn from Scripture, Hell is a place of eternal separation from God and from others. There will be no camaraderie in Hell. It will only be a place of torment, so severe that our human minds cannot conceive how truly awful it will be.
And, lest someone think that he or she has lived a “good” life and surely will be spared this awful place of eternal death, one only needs to take note of what the Apostle Paul wrote to the new Christians gathered at Rome, as recorded in Romans 3:23-24:
… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
We are all sinners. Every last one of us has inherited the sin of Adam through our parents. And, we have continued to sin from the moment we began to become aware of the selfish and deviant spirit that resides in all of us.
Sin is completely pervasive. Even when we look at a beautiful, new baby boy or girl, we must recognize that, from a spiritual standpoint, this little one is also a sinner. How we wish this were not true. But, wishes do not make it so. The Apostle Paul’s words ring down through the ages to us today.
But, notice that the Apostle Paul also states the wonderful truth that though we are sinners, we are also saved by God’s grace through the death of His Son, Jesus. We are reconciled to God through the shed blood of Christ on the cross. We are vouchsafed for heaven through Jesus’ resurrection. We have an advocate in heaven, as our ascended Savior sits on the very right hand of God the Father.
Every day, including this new day, we must not lose sight of the truth that we are sinners. But, we are also sinners saved by God’s grace. Those two truths, taken together, form the very foundation of our spiritual formation. And, that is a marvelously sure foundation upon which we may build our lives filled with abiding peace and great joy.
Based on a blog originally posted on Thursday, June 28, 2018
