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if someone genuinely trusted Christ, but world [of people], and death by sin; and
God refused to justify him, God would be so death passed upon all men, for that all
acting unjustly. God’s one requirement of have sinned” (Rom 5:12).
us is that we acknowledge our guilt and When Adam and Eve sinned, they
receive Christ, by faith, as our Saviour. became sinners. Consequently, when
Verse 21 indicates that “the law and the Cain and Abel were born, they inherited
prophets” bear witness to the fact that the same nature as their father Adam.
justification of the guilty has always been The very first man who was born, Cain,
on the ground of faith. The expression murdered his brother, Abel (Gen 4:8). Our
“the law and the prophets” is the simplest mortality is proof that when we trusted
division of the OT, “the law” referring to Christ, even though our spirits were made
the five books of Moses (Genesis to Deu- alive (Eph 2:4,5), our nature, described in
teronomy), and “the prophets” referring the NT as “the flesh,” was left unchanged.
to the rest of the OT (see Joh 1:45). Paul This we will see when we look at Romans
elaborates on this in chapter 4 of Romans, 8:10.
where he gives two examples of men in OT Some teach that once we are saved we
times who were justified by faith. The first can no longer sin. They are living in a
example is Abraham (4:1-5), an example dream land. The Scriptures do not teach
from the books of Moses. In relation to this, nor does experience confirm it. In 1
Abraham we read, “And he [God] brought John we have a number of tests to see if a
him [Abraham] forth abroad, and said, person is genuinely saved or is apostate.
Look now toward heaven, and tell the One of those tests is found in 1 John 1:8:
stars, if thou be able to number them: and “If we say that we have no [not] sin, we
he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in
he believed in the Lord; and he counted us.” To say that we have not sin is to deny
it to him for righteousness” (Gen 15:5,6). that we have a fallen, sinful nature. In Ga-
The second example is David (Rom 4:6- latians 2:11 we read, “But when Peter was
8), an example from the Prophets (the rest come to Antioch, I withstood him to the
of the OT). Both Abraham (v3) and David face, because he was to be blamed.” Peter
(vv7,8) were justified by faith. No one has had been acting in a hypocritical manner.
ever been justified by seeking to obey the Hypocrisy is sin. If one of the most promi-
Law of Moses. On the other hand, “all nent apostles can sin, then others who are
that believe [in Christ] are justified from saved can sin also.
all things, from which ye could not be What, then, makes us any different from
justified by the law of Moses” (Act 13:39). unbelievers? A young believer once said to
To be justified, in New Testament terms, me, “Dave, I feel worse now than before I
means to have God’s own righteousness was saved.” I replied to her, “Good! Now
accredited to us, because our sins were you have a conscience!” There were things
accredited to the Lord Jesus Christ when that she used to do that never bothered
He suffered for us on the cross. her. But now doing those things made
This does not mean that we are no lon- her feel guilty. How, then, can we live life
ger capable of sinning. We still possess the as “more than conquerors”? This we will
nature we were born with. Paul states, “As see in future articles. In our next article we
by one man [Adam] sin entered into the will look at Two Great Questions.

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