When you walk through

walk through justification by faith and pass into the peace of God,

you don't walk into some kind of small ineffectual field of beauty.

You walk into power, you walk into a rain, you walk into a dominion, you walk into the hands of the living God, which now are not hands of wrath anymore, but because of the death of Jesus they are hands of

grace and all the power that built that universe is on your side.

What does it mean to stand in the grace of God?

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper turns to Romans 5, 1 and 2, to strengthen our faith in the good news of the gospel.

This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on October 24th, 1999.

Everything in this text is means to the end of exulting in the glory of God.

There are five steps. Here's number one.

They're all right here in these two verses. Number one step, the saving work of Jesus Christ. You see it there in verse one.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, you see that phrase, through at the end of the verse through our Lord Jesus Christ

same thing at the beginning of verse two through whom or through him these

throughs mean Jesus Christ has come into the world as the

son of God. He lived a perfect life. He fulfilled all righteousness. He died a death

in our place. He rose triumphant over the grave to vindicate the perfection of his

performance in life. He rains at the Father's right hand and this performance outside of us

before we were ever born is the foundation of all our salvation and hope.

That's the bottom step through Christ.

Now what?

Step two. By faith.

Faith is the second step.

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