To even get a glimpse of being pronounced righteous, we have trouble comprehending it, but to get a glimpse we’ve got to go back to the garden:  man was innocent, God’s new creation couldn’t think sinfully.  All he knew, his whole life consisted of the presence of God and God would at times just reveal Himself, and the Bible says, in the cool of the day they would walk in the garden.  Little knowing that one day, he would be prohibited.  An angelic being would stand armed to keep him from coming and taking of the tree of eternal life, because to have done it in that state of a fallen nature, he would have eternally damned himself.  You see, eternal life doesn’t mean just eternal happiness and peace; it means damnation, and torment, and justice.

As Paul is speaking here by the Holy Ghost, we, being now justified by His blood, it will allow us to be saved from wrath through Him, through His substitutionary work, because He was made sin with our sin: “For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of Jesus, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”  Saved from His wrath; saved unto eternal life; not just longevity, a life of peace and joy, fulfillment.  “I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”  God’s will was fulfilled in this finished work of Jesus.  While we were sinners, Christ died for us.  We owe a debt.  Now, in this knowledge of the debt, does that mean that we live under condemnation and we live, you know, just a life of torment and seeing how we can better please God?  That’s not what I’m talking about.  When I say we owe a debt, what I’m saying is, we’re coming to the realization that God did this—you’ve got to know the heart of God, we have to know the love of God.  God did not do this to put us under bondage or to make us indebted to Him, it only occurred, one hundred percent, because He loves us.

So, that indebtedness then, is not a condemnation, it’s a motivation to let God know how thankful we are and how much we love Him, and He said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.  If you love Me, you will love one another”; amen?  You want to make the heart of God glad?  Just love each other, be patient, be kind.  You want to make God's heart glad?  We cannot contain this truth to ourselves.  How dare we not share this with other people?  Because He loves them, while they’re sinners, and most of them don’t know it, and most of their concept of who God is…  The fact that God is one, there are no other gods besides Him, there are not many paths to God, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life; amen?  We need to get bolder in preaching this gospel.  We have got to get bolder.  What I’m saying is, we’ve just got to fall in love with God more, because you can’t know His love and not share it.  We cannot help but speak the things that we have seen and heard.  Hallelujah!  If we’ve accepted this, how can we not be shouting it from the housetops?  If this is real, how dare we keep it to ourselves?  If we had a cure for cancer, we would be out in a minute helping people.  And the greatest cancer of all nobody even talks—you don’t hear the word “sin” anymore; you don’t hear the word “repentance” anymore.