OCT 3

Romans 5:21
Memorise Ephesians 2:8
“So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous”

“That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Today’s verse is the last verse in chapter 5 of the great book of Romans. In a way, Romans is the book of grace – in which Paul explains the great doctrine of grace. In the first part of Romans, Paul dealt with the problem of sin, resulting in death for all mankind. Remember the “covenant of work” that we learned yesterday – the covenant that God made with Adam and Eve?

From the fall of Adam, all human beings have been “infected” with sin, and all of us deserve to die. So how can any of us be saved? You read the rest of the Old Testament (through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, the “history books” and wisdom books, and right up to the prophets!) and you’d come to see glimpses of God’s plan of salvation – more and more clearly – His “covenant of grace”!

The first glimpse was in Genesis 3 – immediately after the fall, when God told the serpent “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel”. This is the first glimpse of our Savior, who will bruise the serpent’s head – defeat Satan and deliver us from our sin! In this covenant, the onus is no longer on man to obey, for by himself he can never save his soul! It is now all of grace, whereby it is a free gift of God. God himself will be the one to send the Lord Jesus Christ as the atonement for our sins, and He alone will through his death, be able to grant us the free gift. What free gift you may ask? It is that by believing in Him, we can have the righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

Aren’t we glad that the glimpse has become a bright shining light, the light of our Lord Jesus Christ! Aren’t we glad that we are in this covenant of grace? This is the case in which God does everything and promises everything, and bestows this “grace” (undeserved favor) to us – for which we don’t have to do anything (“not works”) but just trust in Him!

Thought: Grace is free – for us. But it costs the Son of God His life!
Prayer: I thank You, Lord, for giving us all things good and beautiful – especially the new life in Christ!