The Assurance of Justification

Having labored to make the point that every person, regardless of background, is in a lost condition—whether Jew or Gentile—and having laid out the case that all the world is guilty before God, and then that the only way for the sinner to be rightly related to God is to be justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, the apostle in Romans 5 comes to a particular truth that is a foundational fruit for those who have come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and rest in the sufficiency of His person and His work.

In Romans 5, the apostle presents before those who are paying attention to this epistle the major deduction that being justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, brings about the blessed experience of assurance.

Assurance. And he is going to weave this experience into his language through the coming chapters. You will find, of course, a wonderful crescendo at the close of Romans 8: “Nothing will separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” There is an assurance for those who come in faith to rest in Christ and Christ alone—an assurance that ought to be experienced, settled, and continued throughout our lives.

Paul is emphatic from the outset of this chapter: therefore being justified. It is in the aorist tense. He views this justification as a completed act. It is passive, showing that the justification is not a work of the sinner himself. God is the one justifying the sinner. It is something received, not achieved, at least not by us. And so the “therefore” that precedes “being justified by faith” is truly bringing the inference of all that has been said before. Based on justification that is by faith alone, faith alone, there is then this standing that is accomplished by God and is complete.

He has done it all. Everything necessary. Now, is this true of all sinners? Is it true that every single sinner experiences this? Well, no. Therefore, being justified by faith is what he says—by faith. This is the instrumental means. It is the empty hand, as we have described it, that reaches out to receive Christ. And what is the result? Those who come by faith, those who are justified by faith—because they have reached out and taken Christ by faith—have peace with God. That is the result. This is in the indicative. It declares a matter of fact. They have peace with God. It is not subject to question. It is beyond doubt.

And by what means is this possible? It is through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by means of Him. It is by His mediation. It is because of Him standing there, representing the sinner, and because of all His merit, which brings the sinner into this standing and to the possession of this confidence. It is through Christ.

And that, beloved, is the heart of the gospel. It is right there. You go back into chapter 4. He uses the language of the very psalm that we sang. He returns to these historic figures and examines their lives, looking at their lives. He draws from Abraham and from David, showing that their standing before God was the result of faith. They had a standing imputed to them, which they received as a gift. Without any meritorious works on their behalf, they received as a gift a standing before God. And this is the conclusion: Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And so tonight I want to consider this aspect of justification—the assurance of justification. And you need to listen carefully, because many of even the most faithful believers struggle with assurance. Sometimes even the most grounded, most established, most aware can go through seasons of struggle. Questions arise. Doubts seem to take hold of the heart.

And if you can grasp this and keep returning to it, and make it a message you preach regularly to your soul, you will find again all the argument you need to recognize that it is enough that Jesus Christ is who He is and has done what He has done, and I rest in Him entirely. It is enough.

So let us consider, first of all, that this assurance is because we have peace with God. This assurance is because we have peace with God. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Consider this in several ways. First, this peace is an objective reality. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul is not describing a feeling. He is not describing that we feel a sense of peace. He is declaring a fact, as I have already explained. The grammar shows this to be the case. Paul is stating this as a standing that is ours, and it is settled. And what we have, because of Jesus Christ and being justified by faith, is this peace. This declaration of peace shows that the hostility is over.

The hostility that you can read about if you go back in Romans—go back and see how the apostle describes the position of humanity under God and before God, those who are separated because of their sin. He speaks of the gospel being revealed, and then he speaks of the wrath of God being revealed. The gospel revealed is in the incarnate Son. The wrath of God is revealed apart from the Son. If you are not in Christ, if you are not resting and believing in Him, then the wrath of God will be revealed.

And in some ways, as he explains in the latter half of Romans 1, he explains how that wrath is revealed even now, before the final judgment. Men are given over to their lusts. They are permitted to pursue their sin because they are so bent on doing so. There is the danger of God withdrawing and allowing them to have everything their heart desires, which is, of course, to their harm and for their judgment.

But for those who have believed, those who have come to a saving knowledge, they have rested in Christ and in simple, childlike faith. They have recognized that in the cross of Jesus Christ, God is making provision for the guilty. It is not a matter of trying to figure out whether I qualify; it is a matter of recognizing that I do qualify. I am a sinner. I am guilty. Christ is dying for the ungodly, and I am welcomed, I am called, I am urged, I am commanded to repent and believe the gospel, to believe the good news that Jesus Christ has done it, that He has finished the work.

I am invited then to drink from that fountain that never runs dry and to receive the blessings of all that He has accomplished. The hostility is over for those who have come. A treaty has been established. The war is over. We have peace with God. Oh, what a thing it is to have peace with God, after all the ways in which humanity might seek peace.

It is not because God ignores sin. He does not. He deals with sin, and He must deal with sin, just as any good judge does. For the sinner, then, it is a recognition that here is the marvel: God sent His Son to deal with sin in such a way that, by Him drinking the cup of condemnation, there is an offer to me—the gift of a cup of blessing. All I must do is reach out and receive it. This is what the cross is all about, where a debt was paid, where wrath was borne. Those who are by nature enemies—just as verse 10 says—were reconciled to God, not by what we did, but by the death of His Son.

We are not reconciled to God by the prayer that we prayed. We are not reconciled to God by the recognition of the sins we committed. We are reconciled to God by the death of the Son.

Keep that in mind. Keep it in mind when your thoughts begin to wander into concerns about assurance, and part of that is because you are assessing whether you prayed sincerely enough, whether you repented of every known sin, whether you have examined everything, and whether you might have missed something. You are constantly trying to look for, examine, and discover something within yourself in order to gain a sense of hope or a feeling of reconciliation.

The reconciliation, men and women, is because of the death of the Son. It is not based on how carefully, how wonderfully, or how thoroughly you can identify all the sins of your life. If you make that a necessary condition for your peace, you will not find peace. It will not come, and it will not remain.

So Paul says without qualification, “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” We have taken God at His word, we have believed in His promise to save us by no merit of our own, by no works of ours. It is something He has done. We have peace without qualification, and it is through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, because of Him, as a result of Him. It is secured by Him. You have peace secured by Him. It is not by anything that you do. It is not by your improvement in Christian virtues.

Is there a place for striving for purity and holiness? Is your peace based on your success in that? No. We have peace with God. Christ has made it so. We fall into the benefit of it. We receive it. We live in the environment of it. We enjoy all the benefits of it. So peace is an objective reality.

If you have come and put your trust in Christ, it is yours. Now, you may not always feel it. You may sometimes wonder if you have it. But if you have come and trusted Christ, solely Christ, abandoning every other claim of merit—whether it be church or religious works or anything else—just abandon it all and say, Christ for me.

If you can imagine it this way, salvation is something to be grasped, as it were, with the hands of the soul. There is only room for one thing in your hands. Only one thing. If you try to hold on to two things, you will drop the most important one. That one thing, above all else, is Christ. There is only room in your grasp, in the grasp of faith, for Christ. If you try to add anything, no matter how noble or sincere, Christ will slip through your fingers, and you will not have the salvation He has provided for us.

This is what is being said. This is encouragement. I want you to understand the strength of this. What the apostle is setting before you is the position of those who have come to walk the same journey as Abraham and David and all the saints who have gone before, and all who will follow.

We are justified by faith and have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So peace is an objective reality, but it is also a comfort to the conscience. This objective peace brings about a subjective benefit.

We know that our conscience is no longer facing a courtroom scene of judgment or scrutiny that threatens to condemn. That has ended. It has been dealt with. We no longer face the threat of condemnation. Therefore, when he comes to Romans 8, verse 1, as many of you know, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. It is gone. The conscience does not disappear. In fact, it becomes a powerful tool. It functions and works, but the condemnation is gone.

It is truly important, then, that believers understand the distinction between the conscience being activated in a context of conviction and the conscience being activated in a context of condemnation. Conviction is being aware of a warning. Conviction comes as a father speaking to his son to instruct in the path of wisdom. Condemnation comes, again, as a judge speaking to a criminal to condemn, to threaten, to remove, to punish. But the believer does not face the threat of punishment. The punitive aspect has been fully dealt with by Christ.

It is over. And I believe it is important for us to remember this distinction between the conscience functioning in a way that is conviction and the conscience functioning in a way that is condemnation. If someone comes to condemn, if Satan comes as the accuser of the brethren, as he does, to make you feel condemned, you silence him by the finished work of Christ. You tell him, Christ is enough. Leave me alone. The blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin. God will not demand payment twice—first at my bleeding Surety’s hand, and then again at mine. There will not be Him paying for me, and then God coming again to ask for what has already been paid for.

So when the thought of condemnation comes, silence it with the gospel. But do not teach your conscience to suppress conviction. I fear sometimes Christians fall into that trap. They will not allow their heart to be convicted. When the word comes to them and they feel conviction, they begin to say, I feel condemned. Oh no, no, no, no, no. Be able to discern the difference. When the love of the Father gently points out a thing and says, my child, stay away from that, or go in this direction, that is not condemnation. But the accusation that condemns makes you feel unworthy, as though you have no benefits, no blessings, and no right before God. That is not true.

Paul asks, who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God who justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ who died, yea rather, who is risen again.

It is bringing to bear the gospel, the silence of any charge, any condemnation. But the conscience can then return to the gospel as a balm. It can freely—and we will note this in just a moment—say that the condemnation is removed, so stop with that. I will not live under an experience or a felt weight of condemnation. And when I feel conviction, I will embrace it, and I have an answer for my shortcomings. And in Jesus Christ, I can confess and have it forgiven, and I can know His grace to enable me to walk in His ways.

Second, notice not only that this assurance is because we have peace with God, but this assurance is because we have access to God. The apostle continues in verse 2: by whom—that is again by Christ—we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. By whom, or through whom, or by the means of Jesus Christ. It is because of Jesus Christ.

He is the sole conduit. He mediates our approach, so we have access, or we might say that we have admission. We have admission into this standing. And again, the language is as a completed action, perfectly indicative. It is something done. It is not something we are waiting for. It is something accomplished.

It carries the idea that what we have obtained, we still possess. By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. Now, we will look at all of that in just a moment, but I want you to understand that what he is saying is not something that can be taken away. When you come through Jesus Christ, this is what you have, and it is permanent.

And God never changes the lock to the door that leads into His presence. He never changes the lock on the door that leads into His presence. It is Jesus Christ, and it will always be Jesus Christ. It is by whom, it is by Him, that we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. It cannot be taken from you, Christian. If you have come into the enjoyment of having access before God in the past, it is true today, and it will be true forever. It is not going away. So access to God, then, means a permanent welcome. Access to God means a permanent welcome. Access. Admission.

You are not just pardoned. You are not just justified and then sent away. By Christ we are justified, and also we have access. We are brought near. We are brought into this position of favor. It is amazing language. We have access by faith into this favored place wherein we now stand. And it is not changing. It is a permanent welcome.

I wish we understood just how much we are welcomed and how much we are loved. God does not suspend us in some place where we wonder, will we make it? I had access yesterday, but do I have it today? Will I enjoy it tomorrow? What He is stating in these opening two verses is settled. The business is done. The work is complete.

And if we understood the heart behind it—I was trying to communicate this this morning with the college and career Sunday school group—the doctrine of the believer’s union with Christ, which undergirds our salvation, shows that the whole message of salvation is not merely freedom from judgment. It is also welcome into fellowship.

One of my favorite verses in all of God’s Word was prayed on Wednesday night. It is the prayer of our Lord Jesus in John 17:24. Never does someone pass away but I never fail to ponder that text when one of God’s people passes into the presence of the Lord. “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory.” You just take Wednesday nights—we often focus on three words. Well, let me give you three words: be with me. Be with me. My prayer, Father, my prayer, Father—oh, hear my prayer, Father—that those You have given will be with me.

He is not interested in turning you away. He wants you to be with Him. There is no love in the world like this. There is no love that compares to the love of the eternal Son toward the sheep. Those You gave me, Father—I do not want merely to die in their place and remove their guilt or lift from them the condemnation. I want them to be with me. And that explains all the rest.

He laid down His life because it was necessary for Him to do so, in order that you may be with Him. He had to go through the humiliation of taking our nature. He had to go through the humiliation of living in this earth among sinners, being a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He had to go through all of that and go to the cross and bear our sins and die, the just for the unjust, so that you may be with Him.

And this text is saying that your entrance is a done deal. As I said, there is no changing of the lock. You will never take the key of Christ someday and realize it no longer gives you admittance. It will always give you admittance. You will stand in this favored place before God because of Christ, now and in eternity.

It is glorious. Therefore the apostle says to the Hebrews, let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Come boldly. This is not arrogance; it is confidence. It is the call of your Redeemer. Come, come, come. Come, I have purchased this for you. I have made the way. I have opened it. Please make use of it.

Do not abandon the favor. Do not neglect the blessing. Let us come confidently to what is now a throne of grace, a throne of favor—something we did not merit, something we did not accomplish ourselves. No, we have access by faith into this grace, into this gracious position, through Christ.

So access to God means a permanent welcome. What a word for the backslider. Permanent welcome.

The devil will come and say, you have been set aside. God is no longer for you. You have out-sinned His grace. Too many years, too much neglect of prayer and His Word, too much embrace of sin. You could be like Samson, having made shipwreck, shipwreck, and still, still step into a gracious welcome—praying even in your dying moments to be of use to your God. Access to God means a permanent welcome. Access to God means a repudiation of trust in our works.

You must repudiate this. I underline it every time, in some way, in some fashion, I return to this point, because any system based even in part on your works will not produce the confidence of Romans 5:1 and 2. It is impossible. And it is completely opposed by the language of the apostle. No system of works by man will ever produce the certainty of this language.

If you include anything related to what you can contribute or what you think you can contribute, you immediately invite uncertainty. Have I done enough? Have I repented enough? Have I obeyed enough? The questions are endless, and the conscience will know that it will never measure up. But to stand in grace means that God deals with you not according to what you deserve, but according to what Christ has merited on your behalf. You are accepted in the beloved, Ephesians 1:6.

We repudiate, then, all trust in our own works, religious or otherwise. We do not repudiate the works. We repudiate trust in the works. There is a clear distinction between these two things.

So having this blessing, this access to God, it should change everything. It should have an impact on your daily life. Let me leave you with five things that you need to remember in order to maintain the confidence of this truth in various situations that are common in your life.

First of all, most notably, is in prayer. When you come to pray and you are wondering, can I pray? Am I heard? Does He care? Does He listen? Is He interested? Do I matter?

You do not work to gain access. You do not try to convince Him to grant you access. Christ has given it. “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” The access is already there. Just carry the Lord Jesus Christ, which you do when your faith is in Him. You come before God, and your faith is in Christ. You are coming before God carrying the very thing that gives you access before Him.

Never leave Him behind. You are not intruding when you bring Christ with you into the place of prayer. Remember how our Lord Jesus prayed outside the tomb of Lazarus? Father, I know that thou hearest me always. You are bringing the One who is never turned away before God. Remember this in prayer.

Remember these truths also in the matter of your conscience. We are able, when the conscience is pricked, to understand the distinction between condemnation and conviction. Because this is settled, we are not trying to impress God, nor are we trying to hide certain details from God in order to avoid consequences. This is settled. We cannot undo what has been done. Your faith in Christ gives you access, gives you a standing, gives you a reception. Therefore, you do not have to live your life in hiding.

This is what a person might do with something in their life that they know could jeopardize their position or employment. They may think, if this becomes known, it could jeopardize my standing. And so a person’s natural inclination would be to hide that detail. They would then direct all their energy toward concealing it, rather than toward correcting the wrong, seeking reconciliation, or doing whatever they could to make things right. They would spend their energy trying to hide it, to avoid damaging their position.

The Christian does not have to go through such effort. He can say, “Yes, Lord, guilty as charged. I did it. I sinned. I plead the blood of Jesus Christ.” And this is your life, right? This is your future from now until you are glorified. Our Lord does not grow weary of your coming to plead the merit of Christ. He does not say, “Again? You sinned again? Again?” He is not surprised by it. He is not shocked that you have fallen again.

He is not caught unawares. He is aware. He knows. He sees. Our Lord Jesus says, “Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.” He knows it. He sees it coming. He is looking for evidence that you understand His value, that you understand the gospel in your free confession, in your open acknowledgment of your sins. He is looking for evidence that you understand His love. This allows you to come without hiding, without sheltering, without reinterpreting, without trying to present the matter in a way that makes it appear better than it is.

What are we doing? Oh, we are such twisted creatures. It is as if someone said, whenever you are in debt, I will cover it. Just come to me. Yet we try to minimize the debt. Here is the truth: with the gospel, we are under no debt. It has been paid in full.

If you can follow this limited illustration, we are invited every day. The Lord’s Prayer contains this. The very prayer we are told, “Give us this day our daily bread.” The implication is clear: this is something we experience and pray through each day. Whether we pray the words exactly or express the general meaning, we pray through this sentiment daily. “Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts.”

Daily debts. He knows this. Therefore, the conscience can rightly acknowledge guilt and know that the blood of Christ is sufficient.

In times of distress, when we feel weary, under criticism, in conflict, or struggling with depression, and we begin to question our standing before the Lord, we must remember that the stress of life can affect us spiritually. We return to truths like these, read them, and say, “It is still there. It is still there.” My circumstances have changed since I last read this. When I read it recently, life was going well, and I thought, Isn’t that a wonderful truth? I moved on without giving it much thought. But now—now I am in the depths of despair. And this truth remains, ready to be returned to and to settle the heart.

It is God’s permission for His people to breathe in times of anxiety and affliction, when our loving Father chastens, when He tests and prunes. These truths remain. I come and say, “The Lord is not paying me back for something here. He is not coming to repay me for something I have done. Jesus Christ has paid for my sins. He is teaching me, and this is good for me.”

In times of accusation, we do not have to become overly defensive. We can simply rest in the standing we have. There are many ways to reflect on this truth. We abandon our trust in our works and reject it completely, because we have access to God.

This assurance leads to our rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. We boast in the hope of the glory of God. We exalt this hope and make it a triumph.

Nothing can change this. This is the central truth. All things are moving toward glory. It cannot be altered. It cannot be changed. Nothing can threaten it. Therefore, we will not be found rejoicing in it today only to discover at the end that it was a vain effort. We rejoice because it is a settled reality. It cannot change.

Yes. Whom He justified, them He also glorified. This is a settled reality. The future is certain. God’s purpose cannot fail. He leads us in this passage from justification, to peace, to access, to hope. It is a chain of certainty from the present into eternity.

So two things quickly. This changes how we face our trials. It changes how we face our trials.

We have been memorizing Psalm 37. The language of that psalm says, “They shall not be ashamed in the evil time.” A time of calamities will come. Calamities will come, but we will not be ashamed. The hope that we have does not remove the suffering we may experience, but it changes the suffering, the weight of it, and the meaning of it. Verse 3 says, “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope:” It changes how we face our trials.

Because those trials, however pressing, do not change the final outcome. The last chapter has already been written.

But it also changes how we face the judgment. I want to dwell on this. Please give me your attention just before I close, because I want to make this as clear as possible. It changes how we face the judgment.

For the believer, their justification in this life, which we might call actual justification, will become a declarative justification in the future—a justification that will be declared when we are openly acknowledged and acquitted on that great day. It is important for us to understand what is taking place and how Scripture brings together the future of the believer.

When Dabney wrote on this subject, listen to what he said. He said, first, then, at length, the benefits of the believer’s justification in Christ will be fully conferred, and he will, by the resurrection, be put into possession of the last of them—the redemption of his body. So justification brings about the promise of the redemption of the body, and that will come to pass. That is the first thing.

Second, there will be a declaration of the sentence of justification passed when each believer believed. God will punish the unrighteous and pardon the repentant. God will publish this to His assembled creatures for His declarative glory and for their instruction. This final declarative justification will be grounded on believers’ works, as he refers to Matthew 25, and not necessarily on their faith alone. This is because it will be addressed to the fellow creatures of the saints, who cannot read the heart and can only know the existence of faith by its fruits.

Therefore, what he is saying is that justification has this actuality here. It will become a public declaration of justification, in which God, who knows the heart, affirms the heart that He has already justified. That standing will not change, but He will then use the works of the believers as evidence to declare that justification, giving visible proof of what He has accomplished in their lives.

James Buchanan, dealing with the same idea—and it is a longer passage, so pay attention—states that the pardon of a sinner and his acceptance as righteous in the sight of God is by faith. But judgment is according to works, and it is not a second justification, as if there could be two, one by faith and another by works. It is one and the same justification, which is actually bestowed in the present life and authoritatively declared and attested at the judgment seat.

Some have imagined that the doctrine of a free justification now by grace through faith alone is inconsistent with that of a future judgment according to works. For this reason, they have attempted either to equate justification and judgment precisely, or to modify the doctrine of justification by faith alone so as to bring it into accordance with that of a judgment according to works. But there is no real inconsistency between the two doctrines.

They relate to different parts of the divine procedure and are equally necessary. The one provides immediate relief for the sinner’s conscience, and the other regulates the believer’s conduct. I would have every preacher, said Dr. Chalmers to the author, insist strenuously on these two doctrines: present justification by grace through faith alone, and future judgment according to works. And all faithful ministers have used both, so that they might guard equally against the danger of self-righteous legalism on the one hand and practical antinomianism on the other.

But we refer to the future judgment only as it provides additional evidence of the distinction between actual and declarative justification. End quote. I’ll leave it there.

Now, that brings a sobering awareness of what is coming in the judgment. But what I want you to be settled about is that God will take your works and manifest them as evidence. He will declare, so that everyone will see, what He has accomplished in your life. The work of justifying and transforming your life will be clearly evident and publicly declared. Again, when you read Matthew 25, you see the emphasis on ministry to the saints and love for the brethren. If anything is most prominent in what is being examined, it is how we relate to one another as those who share the same standing before God and Christ.

But this does not change anything. I want you to understand this. I wanted to bring this up because sometimes we wonder about the testing of our works, the examination, and what is to come. I mentioned it this morning, and elders are reminded that they will give an account. But listen to this: it does not change our standing. It was read yesterday at the funeral, Revelation 22:11, “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” The standing is settled. The language of Romans 5:1 and 2 is certain. It does not change anything.

But He will use your life, and here is the motivation: to live your life in His fear and for His glory. It will be evidence of what He has done. When your fellow creatures cannot see the heart, they will see what grace has produced.

This does not take away from this truth. With this I will close: on that day, on that day, our Lord Jesus Christ will bring us in—not with reluctance, not with any sense of regret, but with delight, so to speak—to present you faultless before the presence of His glory.

He will do it with exceeding joy. We experience events in the seasons of life—children born, waiting for another one to be born very soon, keep praying for a sister. We have marriages, we anticipate them, and other things that bring us great delight. The Lord Jesus is waiting for that day to receive you and present you without fault.

It will be a joyful day for Him. That is what Jude says. With exceeding joy. You will see it on His face. His face will confirm the truth of what the Spirit has written in Romans 5:1: Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And you will see on His face that this was most certainly true.

But I have not lived a perfect life. Yet I am being received and presented before God without fault, with great joy—exceeding joy. This is true only for Christians. Therefore, if you are not a Christian, you have no claim to this. But you can receive it tonight, even in this moment. You can see in His promises, in His welcome, and in His call to you as a sinner, this confident sound of encouragement, the words of ability: Come to me. Come to me. And He is absolutely certain that what He has done will deal with all your sin and every enemy, and will give you a complete standing and perfect acceptance.

This is glorious—the assurance of justification. May we all know it.