Fri.-Sabbath, 1/6-8/23 Devotion

Praise God—Sunday is only two days away. We get to go back to church, to worship God! In order to help prepare us for the Lord’s Day, here are great words from John Calvin’s “Institutes of the Christian Religion.” He is dealing with the monumental subject of justification here. . . .

“The person, then, who is justified is not counted a sinner but is counted righteous, and is thus able to stand before God’s judgment seat where sin-ners can only stumble and fall. . . . Conversely he is said to be justified by faith who, without reference to the righteousness of works, grasps by faith the righteousness of Jesus Christ; when clothed with it he appears before God’s face not as a sinner but as righteous. . . . It therefore follows that as long as some little drop of righteousness survives in our works, we have something to boast about. So if faith excludes all boasting, the righteousness of faith can in no way coexist with the righteousness of works."