How much more heresy are we going to have to put up with from you and the others on this board who speak the evil lies of works-based salvation and man-based responsibility to "maintain salvation"?
If not for the grace of God, offered without condition, guilty man would remain under His judgment and coming wrath. The wound inflicted upon all humankind by Adam's sin would be incurable, without healing. But blessed be God forever, there is another way for us.
Grace! This is the righteousness of God. The righteousness He has ordained, He provides, He endows! It is by faith given by His grace alone that saves through Jesus Christ, His Son, the Anointed Savior. Justifying faith granted us freely and forever allows us to respect Christ as the Savior our hearts have finally, in agony and hopelessness, called out for when they have realized there is nothing within us worth saving, but desperately wanting salvation, come to believe that it is available through Christ Jesus in all three of His anointed offices, as Prophet, Priest, and King.
By this faith, granted willingly by a loving and Almighty God, those hearts come to a point of trusting in Him, accepting Him, and cleaving to Him out of love, gratitude, thanksgiving, and praise. Such a love, such a gratitude for being salvaged from destruction can never be denied by the heart that knows where it was, what fate is faced, and by what amazing grace it was rescued.
Jews and Gentiles are alike welcome to God through Christ. There is no difference, His righteousness is upon all who but believe. It is not only offered to them, but set upon them as a crown, as a robe. It is free grace, mere mercy. There is nothing in us to deserve such favors. It comes freely upon us, but Christ bought it, and paid the price. And our faith, given without cost to us, has special regard for the blood of Christ, as that which has made the atonement. Blood shed in place of ours, blood spilled on a rude cross of wood to fulfill the destiny of its Owner that was established before the foundations of the Earth were laid, cannot be denied by anyone truly washed in it.
The man saved from the wreckage of Titanic, the Marine rescued from Khe Sanh, the woman given over to the hands of a rapist but snatched away from him by the brave passerby -- these will never, ever forget the name of the savior from that event nor the circumstances of it's coming about. So much more will one have indelibly stamped on his heart, mind, soul, and spirit Him who gave everything for him before he was ever even known by this world!
God, in all this, declares his righteousness. It is plain that He hates sin, when nothing less than the blood of Christ would satisfy for it. And it would not agree with His justice to demand the debt, when the Surety has paid it, and He has accepted that payment in full satisfaction. Grace has no conditions. It is pure heresy and evil to believe otherwise.
