Romans 5:3-11

Goodness means excellence of character. Someone has defined it as "virtue equipped at every point," which simply means that the person possessing it is kind, virtuous and righteous in every area of life.

Goodness is the opposite of badness. A bad man may be deceitful, immoral, treacherous, unjust, cruel, selfish, hateful, covetous, and/or intemperate. The good man, though not perfect, exemplifies truth, justice, purity and other similarly desirable traits.

The Apostle Paul...

Love is that quality in God which causes Him to lavish unbounded affection on others. His love is manifest in giving good and perfect gifts to the beloved.

We can give only a few of the myriad of verses that speak of that love! "I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee" (Jeremiah 31:3). "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (

Sometimes words in the Christian vocabulary have a different meaning than they have in ordinary usage. "Hope" is one of those words.

As far as the world is concerned, to hope often means to look forward to something unseen but with no certainty of fulfillment. A man in deep financial trouble may say, "I hope everything will turn out all right," but he has no assurance that it will. His hope may be nothing but wishful thinking. The Christian hope also looks forward to something unseen,...

Christ did not come to call the righteous nor did He die for good people. It was not for decent, respectable, refined people that He went to the Cross. He died for the ungodly.

Of course, from God's standpoint, all mankind is ungodly. We were all born in sin and shaped in iniquity. Like lost sheep, we have gone astray and turned to our own way. In God's pure eyes, we are depraved, unclean and rebellious. Our best efforts to do what is right are nothing but filthy rags.

The...

James does not say that the man in today's verse has faith. The man himself says he has faith, but if he really had saving faith, he would have works also. His faith is a matter of words only, and that kind of faith cannot save anyone. Words without works are dead.

Salvation is not by works. Neither is it by faith plus works. Rather it is by the kind of faith that results in good works.

Why then does James say in verse 24 that a man is justified by works? Isn't this a flat...

Imagine a number of men whose hearts are filled with bitterness against their sovereign, and, in a certain chamber, are industriously laboring at the construction of an infernal machine, to be exploded on some approaching day when the sovereign is to pass that way. The heart of this sovereign, say, is kindness itself. He receives information of what these men are doing. Disguising himself he comes among them, and succeeds in convincing them that he is friendly, and will prove a valuable...

If we owe much to the death of Christ, we owe much more to his life. It were little to give us the freedom of the universe, if in that universe we could not find Christ. It were little to give us immortality, if there were no Sun of Righteousness to make that immortality glorious and beautiful. It would be like discovering some unknown friend in his dying hour; we have hardly time to acquaint ourself with his amazing love, and to see the flash of his kindness illuminating our life, before he...

Alps on Alps arise, as the believer presses forward in his course. He beholds a summit, and exclaims, " My God will meet me there, and there will gainsayers be confounded." But when he reaches it, he receives not the expected testimony, and unbelievers make a mock of his disappointed hopes. He would be troubled; but in the absence of the external testimony, he receives an inward sweet assurance of the love and faithfulness of God, and in the very hour of his disappointment, his face shines...

Romans 5:1-11

Justification by faith is the starting point in the Christian life. There can be no tree without a root ; no stream without a fountain. The careless, unsaved ones may read about the blessings of redemption, as we have them here in our lesson, and may say, "Yes, they are very...