Recognizing that one is totally unable to save or help save himself, a man is justified or declared righteous in the sight of God when he entrusts his soul to Christ alone to give him eternal salvation. It is not possible to savingly believe on Jesus Christ and think that ones works have anything to do with the forgiveness of sin. The Bible says, For by grace [undeserved favor] are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9). If salvation is by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work (Romans 11:6); grace and works are mutually exclusive in the matter of the forgiveness of a mans sins. Anyone who believes that deeds, such as baptism, church attendance, partaking of the Lords supper, seeking to obey the Bible, prayer, confession of sin, or any other act has a particle to do with receiving justification before God does not believe in Jesus Christ at all; he merely has intellectual understanding of the facts of the gospel, a kind of faith that he shares with the devils (James 2:19) and the damned; to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness (Romans 4:5). As long as one is working for salvation, one does not believe in Christ for it; it is to him that worketh not, but believeth on him. Saving faith trusts that Christ is actually the Savior, so He saves men without the filthy rags of all our righteousnesses (Isaiah 64:6) as blasphemous additions to the sufficiency of the death and shed blood (Revelation 7:14, 1:5) of Him who is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him (Hebrews 7:25). Gods people are found in him, not having [their] own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith (Philippians 3:9). Saving faith looks to Christ and His work on the cross alone for salvation; if one truly believes that God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16), he will not add conditions to salvation that God has not added; if God says whosoever believeth in him is certain of everlasting life, obviously belief in Christ is sufficient to save. Since the Bible promises that he that believeth on him is not condemned (John 3:18), the very moment one trusts in Christ he hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life (John 5:24); that moment all of his past, present, and future sins are washed away in the blood of the Savior, and he receives the righteousness of Christ as his standing before God; the Lord Jesus having paid in full for his sins, and having died as his Substitute, God treats every believer as if he were as sinless and righteous as His own Son, and, the penalty of the Law entirely satisfied, both Gods justice and mercy demand the eternal salvation of the justified individual. God is just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus (Romans 3:26), and we therefore conclude, with the apostle Paul, that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law (Romans 3:28).
Love,
Madeline