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Romans 4:24-25 –
The Apostle Paul says “but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the
dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (ESV)
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Here Paul tells us Jesus is Lord, usually understood as God, dead and raised. He tells his readers that
Jesus was killed for our sins and raised for our justification.

1 Corinthians 15:3-6
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in
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accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance
with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.”
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Paul specifically quoted the gospel as this early church creed. Incidentally, according to Gary Habermas,
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Bart Ehrman and many other specialized skeptics date this creed to within one year of the cross.
Which means this is the earliest documented creed from the early church regarding what they believed.
Notice in this passage the deity of Jesus is not brought up. Jesus is called Messiah (Christ). Is the deity of
Christ necessary to believe or is it simply necessary that it be true? In this passage, the belief is in the
death and resurrection. This is why there is a debate.

In conclusion we must remember that as pastors we must preach what God has done. To believe is to
trust that Jesus is who He says and will do what He said. That is all. Notice that in the passages above the
content of the Gospel sometimes includes or does not include different things. The question is what is the
core? The Bible is clear that the person who trusts Christ for their salvation has eternal life and as we will
see in the section on eternal security, once they have it, they can never lose it. Faith is the only condition
for Justification (eternal salvation). Those who have it can know they will be in Heaven because of the
promise of God, not their own performance. The certainty of being “in the state of grace,” is “the full
assurance of faith founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the inward evidences of
those graces . . . and the testimony of the Spirit of adoption, witnessing with our spirits that we are the
children of God.”
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Differences Between Justification and Sanctification.

The following table specifies several differences between justification and sanctification:
Justification Sanctification

Legal standing Internal condition

Once for all time Continuous throughout life

Entirely God’s work We cooperate

Perfect in this life Not perfect in this life

The same in all Christians Greater in some than in others 212

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