Last week we defined the term “justification by faith.” Justification means to be counted righteous by God, or to be declared to be in a right relationship with God. You’d think we’d earn right standing with God by our hard work, good deeds, or religious participation. But Paul makes a completely different argument. He says that we are declared to be right with God through our faith in Jesus. Crazy, right? We’re saved by faith alone.

Last Sunday we also saw that justification by faith produces something – we are at peace with God. We have a settled and secure relationship with God because we have been declared to be in the right with God based on Jesus’s work, not our work. No more looking over our shoulders wondering if God is against us.

This Sunday we continued in Romans 5 and see another attribute of justification, a resilient hope.