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What do justification and santification mean?

Justification means our declared righteousness before God, made possible by Christ’s death and resurrection for us. Sanctification means our gradual, growing righteousness, made possible by the Spirit’s work in us. (1 Peter 1:1-2) (from here)

We are perfect in you. Knowing this, we strive to live out who we are, having our very selves changed by you. It's radical and profound and I am well-accustomed to it. Yet my life betrays how feeble is my actual faith - the anxiety, worry, stress, pressure, and striving I live by show I doubt my perfection and the security I have in you. I strive for my sanctification with more than a glad, grateful confidence and a serious purpose. Forgive me, Lord. Thank you for the people who have helped me to - at last - see this about myself. Give me the assurance I lack - of your goodness, power, and trustworthiness and my security in you. Help me ever strive, but as your beloved child. Have mercy on me.

31

What do we believe by true faith?
Everything taught to us in the gospel. The Apostles’ Creed expresses what we believe in these words: We believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. (Jude 1:3) (from here)

Thank you, Lord, for the things we know to be true. Thank you for speaking to us and letting us know your thoughts and the sort of God you are - a little similar, but so very different to human-made gods. Thank you for the things you have done in the world before the eyes of all, and for the things you promise to do.

Lord, sometimes I grow weary of the Apostle's Creed and its truths seem faded. Forgive me. Help me thrill at the profundity and surity of these words and at the privilege of being part of this great family stretching out across countries and years, together affirming the very same things.

Praise you for who you are, Father, Son and Spirit! Praise you for what you have done on this earth - on that hill! Praise you for the coming consummation of all! Now I know what it is to live. I am to live under you. It has been your pleasure to save me and have me repeat these words with all my heart and mind. And I thank you for it.

30

What is faith in Jesus Christ?
Faith in Jesus Christ is acknowledging the truth of everything that God has revealed in his Word, trusting in him, and also receiving and resting on him alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel. (Galatians 2:20) (from here)

Thank you for giving me faith, Lord. So many times I see intelligent people completely misunderstanding the cross, returning to that old idea of good behaviour. Sometimes they get it - and nothing changes, it has zero effect on their lives. Thank you for lifting the veil from my eyes and heart so I recognised the truth of what was said and was willing to bank my life on it. You gave me the gift and you opened my hands to receive it. My life would be other had you not stepped in - my death too.

Thank you for your mercy. Thank you that the security of my faith is my trust in him, no matter how fervant or faltering that trust might be. Yet please help it grow strong as I know him more. Give me this too. The gift, the open hands, the eager embrace.

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How can we be saved?
Only by faith in Jesus Christ and in his substitutionary atoning death on the cross; so even though we are guilty of having disobeyed God and are still inclined to all evil, nevertheless, God, without any merit of our own but only by pure grace, imputes to us the perfect righteousness of Christ when we repent and believe in him. (Ephesians 2:8-9) (from here)

I never got to this point. I think I simply saw that you were Lord and began to follow you, learning more of you and your ways as I went along. I never asked this question - I was absolutely looking for help, but help in earthly things, never help in the face of death.

But I shudder at the thought of not being saved - that that's what I once was, that it's what my friends are. I see the awful danger of it. I see the futility of trying to right things ourselves and I see that our only hope is to humble ourselves and throw ourselves on your mercy. That it is every bit a saving or a rescue as when someone's drowing in the shallows or on an organ waiting list or in the darkness of a paedophile's brothel.

How then can we be saved? By jumping into your arms. By believing that you will catch us. By believing that you can catch us.

You are better than a lifeguard, better than an organ donor, than a policeman, than an ordinary citizen picking through rubble in the hope of hearing someone's voice or a boyfriend lying in front of his girl so his body might take the bullets meant for her. These beautiful deeds are but pale shadows of you. You saved us from horror when there was no injustice in it. You secured heaven for us for all eternity and in the face of all threat. And you did it at such cost.

Thank you that when we ask about salvation, there is something to be said.

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What happens after death to those not united to Christ by faith?
At the day of judgment they will receive the fearful but just sentence of condemnation pronounced against them. They will be cast out from the favorable presence of God, into hell, to be justly and grievously punished, forever. (John 3:16-18 & 36) (from here)

Lord Jesus, I want to tell you that I hate hell. I want to make you understand how deeply it troubles me. But you don't like it any more than I do.

I want to somehow convince you that it's unnecessary or unjust or could be avoided, that ridding us of it would be better for your image or make you a better God. I speak as if you were untroubled by its existence; as if you had not shown yourself to be perfectly good and loving; as if you were so cruel or uncaring as to allow it when other, better options were at hand. You are not that god.

I should rather believe you. That hell is real and eternal and terrible. That it is just - because it is what people want, and because it is what we deserve. That in its justice it is loving and dignifying - because it shows that what we do with our lives matters, and that the evil we do to others and they to us does not go unnoticed.

I cannot say why evil stepped into this world, why an angel became the proud, murderous, lying, crafty Accuser. It is better that I cannot say, for I would not wish there to be a reason. Yet still I cannot understand why you would have it so. But I see that it is bad and I see that there needs to be justice and I - mostly - believe you when you say that hell is just.

Father, as always, in the things I do not - and cannot - understand, and in the times when I rock on the edge of accusing you (following my former master), I come back to the cross. There I see that you suffered hell so that we might not have to. There I see that in your justice you were all love. There I see every person invited and beseeched to throw themselves upon your mercy.

Lord, teach me how to talk about this with my friends. Stir my heart to pray for them. Give me at once a dreadful urgency and a sure trust and joy in you. Make me more like your beloved Son.

27

Are all people, just as they were lost through Adam, saved through Christ?
No, only those who are elected by God and united to Christ by faith. Nevertheless God in his mercy demonstrates common grace even to those who are not elect, by restraining the effects of sin and enabling works of culture for human well-being. (Romans 5:17) (from here)

This is the part I hate of my faith, though I see it is just and fair. Yet I do not understand why, being merciful, you would not extend that mercy to all instead of only some. That is how I would do it. But, Lord, I am nothing. I know nothing. My thinking and feeling is eaten up by sin. Who am I to judge or seek your place? I am not and I do not. Knowing what you did for me and countless others - and greater and better still, for your own glory - I cannot help but declare your goodness and put my trust in you.

Forgive me, Lord, when my doubting and accusing verge on blasphemy. Have me know my place. Have me bow before you and trust you, in part from fear, but much more with happy rejoicing.

And while I don't know if in the end you will save any or all of my friends and family who are now far from you, yet I thank you for them. Thank you for their loyalty and their care, for the many ways they are a blessing to me. Thank you that you stop us from being what we might, from cruelty and violence, betrayal and anarchy, for we are each capable of all that. Thank you for the dignity and intelligence and creativity and good we keep. Help me ever appreciate and respect my friends and society, even as I seek their salvation. Help them see that this is so and wonder at it despite themselves. Have mercy, Lord, have mercy.

26

What else does Christ's death redeem?
Christ’s death is the beginning of the redemption and renewal of every part of fallen creation, as he powerfully directs all things for his own glory and creation’s good. (Colossians 1:19-20) (from here)

One day, living here in Chile, I will experience an earthquake - it's just about given. My building sways with the passing traffic and gentle tremors don't bother me, but I dread the big ones and I dread that earthquake even more. In Australia, my parents' house backs onto bush and, living there, bushfires are always a possible threat. But I am rich - the fire service puts out the fires on my parents' hill, and here my building is sturdy and withstood the last earthquake. I don't know what it is to live in places where broken nature might kill you.

It's even more than this - we live with smog and weariness and disease and ground that produces little. Even without your revelation, we might think the physical world cursed. Our world and our bodies are no longer our friend, though they keep much of their magnificent beauty. It's the stuff of a dark fairytale, but it is our reality. Somehow this was the fitting punishment for the darkness that we welcomed into our hearts. Ruined, deeply evil humanity could no longer live in a glad, whole land. And the land cries and we join it.

And it rejoices at the name of Jesus and it longs for the consummation of all he wrought on the cross.

Thank you God that one day all will be well, that life will be much like the life we know, but utterly changed. We will step into a strangely familiar yet wholly foreign place, in bodies we know and do not know, and feel more at home there than we ever imagined. Thank you that on the cross you fixed everything. Thank you for your love wrought in justice. Thank you and thank you. A million times thank you.