There are two ways of looking at salvation, and scripture provides us with both. One is the legal aspect, and the other is the family aspect. Both are true, but one must lead to the other, but I believe that one cannot be justified without the work of the Holy Spirit in their heart. Neither can one become righteous without this new birth. (Many misunderstand the righteousness that is of faith, when the example given is Abrahan believing what God said to him.)
Again, Paul writes this about us:
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him, through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death is no longer master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so, consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Much that Paul wrote is easy to misunderstand. Peter warned of this in his letter. The simple truth is that we are part of a plan, which has been God's plan from the very beginning. He wanted companions and children and worshipers that He could shower the riches of His love on, for eternity. To be any of these, we must be all of these. We are members of the kingdom of heaven, but we cannot even see the kingdom unless we are born of the Spirit. And the grace that Paul writes of is not some nebulous thing that cannot be explained; it is fellowship with God, which is what He has always desired from us. (God was angry with the children of Israel in the wilderness at the mountain, because they turned their backs on Him, hardening their hearts to not hear His voice.[They told Moses to not let God speak to them])
I know from the Spirit that there has been way too much emphasis put on the faith and the justification and the righteousness aspects of our salvation, to the detriment of the aspects which make us the children of God, the Holy Spirit's indwelling, and the voice of God, and entering His presence, even within the veil. Paul wrote that if we are lead by the Spirit, then we are God's children. But if not, then we are not.
When it all shakes out, I would like to think that I cared about my being God's child first and foremost, over the forensic aspect of salvation. For if we have the Spirit and hear His voice, then we know that we are His sheep, (His children,) and that He knows us. I just cannot run the risk of hearing Him say to me in that day, "I never knew you." I am afraid that many who believed to justification never knew God as Father, and never cried "Abba, Father!"
In His love,
vic
