I see that many of us look at salvation from the point of view of ‘God forgave the sins I committed’. You didn’t realize that you have been declared a sinner before you were born. You have been judged and condemn to hell while you were still in the womb just because you are a human being. You didn’t have the right to call God your Father or pray to Him. Before Jesus came, God gave the Jews the privilege to call upon Him provided they fulfill certain conditions (the circumcision first and other laws). These conditions were not extended to non-Jews who (gentiles) and that includes you and I.

That privilege is what grace and faith in the death of Jesus gave to us. That privilege made us righteous because no one can stand before God without being righteous. It gave us a right standing before God. That privilege made you a child of God and granted you an admission into the University of Heaven.

Let me illustrate it this way, everyone who seeks to gain admission to a university in Nigeria will be required to pass WAEC and JAMB exams (the laws). But if there is someone who is given admission without writing those exams, it is because of certain privileges (grace). However, after being granted that admission, he will be required to write semester exams (holy living) so that He can graduate (be raptured, become immortal, and eternally saved).

His semester exams (holy living) will not be waived. But he will be helped all the way unlike his counterparts (those who lived by the law), who usually fail the semester exams, no matter how they try.
“So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.” (Romans 3:28 NLT)

Every time my spiritual children study the book of Romans, they come back to me bombard me with questions which I have had to attend to over and over in this year alone.
When you read the book of Romans, you are likely to conclude that faith is all it takes. But as true as that conclusion is, it has misled and it is still misleading many people. In fact, that is where the ‘once saved forever saved’ folks got their confusion from. Many years ago, I wrote a book titled “The Knot in Romans” where I discuss the book of Romans line by line but I am yet to publish it.
To understand a book especially the epistles, you need to understand the context of those books. That is, WHY IT WAS WRITTEN TO THOSE IT WAS WRITTEN TO WHEN IT WAS WRITTEN?
In Paul’s days, there were two types of believers: the Jewish believers and the gentile believers. The Jews were simply the Israelites while the gentiles were the non-Israelites. The Jewish believers were very possessive and were racists. At first, they argued that the gentiles should not be preached to at all. But after Peter’s encounter in Cornelius’ house and Paul’s aggressive evangelism among the gentiles, the argument shifted to ‘they must observe the works of the law before they can be saved’.
Let me inform you that, every time you come across ‘law’ or ‘works of the law’ in the book of Romans or in any other Epistles, it is largely referring to circumcision. Let me take that again. Eighty percent of the times Paul argued against the law in the book of Romans, he was talking about circumcision.
If you are a Christian today especially a gentile, you really have no idea why circumcision could be so much of an issue back then. And that explains why many of us find the book of Romans confusing. We try to relate it contemporary times but it doesn’t fit.
Then, the Jewish believers who were also known as circumcised believers insisted that for anyone (male) to become a Christian, such must be circumcised according to the Law of Moses. That is, a part of his genital must be cut off before such can be counted as Christian. (It should be noted that Jews do not relate with the uncircumcised). This argument was so fierce that the council in Jerusalem wrote a letter to the gentiles (uncircumcised believers) but it didn’t end there.
It was so serious that Paul had to circumcise Timothy, a full grown man. It was so serious that Peter stopped eating and mixing with the gentile believers when he sighted other Jewish believers. Paul had to scold Uncle Peter openly. It was so serious that Paul dedicated most of the book of Romans to it and mentioned it severally in other Epistles. It was so serious that Paul referred to those circumcision folks as dogs that is, “butchers of flesh” (Phil. 3:2). It was so serious that many Galatian converts were falling for the bait and Paul had to scream angrily “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you”. As a result, the second book of the Bible that talks so much about Law, Faith and Grace after Romans is Galatians.
Back to the book of Romans, Paul repeatedly said faith is all it takes to be saved. And when you are saved, you are saved, no further work is needed. The circumcision sects however said, you can be saved but after you are saved, you need to be circumcised as well (Gal. 3:1-2).
The question here is, what kind of faith was Paul talking about and what kind of salvation was he talking about?
In case you don’t know, there are up to five classifications of faith, many types of grace and there are up to three levels of salvation (justification, sanctification and glorification). Paul mostly emphasized only one. The one he emphasized was the SAVING FAITH, the SAVING GRACE and the JUSTIFICATION level of Salvation.
After reading the book of Romans someone asked me that if we still need to serve in God’s house after salvation. Some have asked, “does it mean we will automatically make heaven whether we live in sin or not?” and many more similar questions.
Saving Faith means you believe that the death of Jesus is all you need to have all your sins forgiven, and to be acceptable before God when praying and relating with Him. It is just like a visa. With it you can enter United States of America without changing your skin colour into white. The Jewish believers however argued that the gentiles needed their skin colours to be changed.
After entering the United States, there are acceptable standard of behavior required of you to remain in the land. In Christianity, that is what we call holy living. Holy living is not what you do to be saved but what you do to remain saved and to be saved eternally. “…work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:14 NLT)
Many miss this part when reading the book of Romans because Paul didn’t place much emphasis on it. He wrote more about the visa part which was the major argument at that time, most especially among the Romans.
The next time you are read the book of Romans, read it with this understanding. Where you see law, see it mostly as circumcision and where you see salvation, see it mostly as Justification. And try to read the book of Galatians before reading Romans. It addresses almost the same thing as Romans but in much simpler language.
Consider the extract below. The words in bracket are mine.
“Knowing that a man is not justified (saved) by the works of the law, but by the (saving-) faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified (saved) by the (saving-) faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law (act of circumcision); for by the works of the law (circumcision) shall no flesh be justified (saved).” (Galatians 2:16)

“So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God.” (Romans 7:4 NLT)

This is it; a believer and unbeliever are in the examination hall. The law says, “thou shall not cheat.” If an unbeliever refuses to cheat, he is not cheating because he doesn’t want to violate the law but when a believer refuses to cheat, it is because he is a believer and not because of the law. The law has lost its power over him. He is dead to the law and by the Spirit of grace, he CAN produce good deeds. He CAN refuse not to cheat. Take note the word “can.” It talks of an ability which may or may not be put into an actuality.
The Scripture doesn’t say that a believer cannot sin, it says a believer will not sin. It doesn’t say a believer will surely produce good deeds but says he can conveniently live righteously. Being a believer doesn’t mean that you cannot sin anymore but it means you can avoid sin. The power and ability is in us! Those who are under the law don’t have that ability. They struggle and end up falling into sin.

That you are a believer doesn’t mean that if you commit sin, it should be called another name. There are preachers giving sin different names these days. They will be like: one is believers’ sin, the other is unbelievers’ sin. Some would say a believers’ sin is called weakness. It is like calling a pig a beautiful pig.

To every believer struggling with sin, I want you to know that it is an insult to your personality in Christ. The ability not to commit that sin is in you. It is called “the sanctifying grace.” That ability to overcome is in you. Joseph had no law but was able to flee fornication. God doesn’t want you avoid sin just because there is a law prohibiting it, he wants you to avoid sin because there is a power at work in you. This power was released into you by the SAVING GRACE of Christ.
Go in this might in Jesus Name.

One simple way to understand the Scripture is to know what God CAN say and what God CANNOT say. There are some passages that people use today to justify pre-marital sex. Even when someone quotes such to you and you don’t actually understand what it says, one thing you must have in mind is that God CANNOT permit fornication. That you don’t understand what that Scripture truly mean doesn’t mean you should give such devilish interpretation a second thought. And patiently wait till the time you will understand that scripture. It may take years. Yes, there are passages I didn’t understand until many years after I first came across them. I didn’t understand them but I didn’t give in to any form of misunderstanding.

God CANNOT say that a believer who gives himself to a sinful life will make heaven. God CANNOT say that when you continue in sin, the sin doesn’t affect you because you are a spirit. God CANNOT say that once you are once saved, you are unconditionally and forever saved. Salvation doesn’t remove your right of choice. It only emboldens your right for good choice. You can choose either to be controlled by the Spirit which will lead to eternal life or yield your body to sin which will lead to eternal death.

Another rule of understanding the Scriptures is to explain a Scripture in the light of another Scripture. Never build or accept a heresy inferred from few verses of the Scripture. God is consistent. You may not understand what those verses are saying today but wait, wait till the time you will get a balanced view and do not settle for a distorted view.

The book of Romans established that our immortality and eternal salvation is a hope. We don’t have it already; we are still hoping to have it. There is something about faith, you must believe that you have it already before you will have it. So, if we are to approach immortality from the angle of faith, it means, we already have it before we will have it.

“We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait pa­tiently and CONFIDENTLY.)” (Romans 8:24-25 NLT)
From my first year in the University, I was already seeing myself as a graduate even though I was yet to be but I was sure that I would graduate. Not by my own effort but the power of God at work in me. But does it mean that I was sleeping and failing my exams? No! I read and did my part.
Works do not make us righteous but righteousness make us work.

Salvation is very easy to get but very difficult to lose. God made it so. It is just like a studentship admission, which is quite easy to get but very difficult to lose. Note that, it is difficult, but not impossible to lose. All through my days in school, I don’t know of any person who was sent packing from the school but there were people who were expelled. That I don’t know them doesn’t mean that they were not.
Kenneth Hagin told of how some people connected some scriptures and arrived at the conclusion that, ‘since Christ died for all, even unbelievers won’t go to hell but heaven.’I watched a man on twitter yesterday who claimed that the Jebusites are actually the Ijebus (a sub group among the Yorubas in Nigeria) and the city of Jerusalem was actually Ijebu Isale. (Isale means valley in Yoruba language). He bragged that he read the Bible in Hebrew and Greek so, he knew what he was saying. I was shocked when I saw people who cannot think for themselves praising him. There is no language in this world that has not undergone significant and massive changes. Even Shakespearean English which is just a few hundred years old has been completely changed. How come “isale” a Yoruba word thousands of years ago is still written the same way now? Let me add that, the speaker was one of those who are opposed to paying of tithes and many believers fall victim. They are simply blasphemous. But someone has rightly said if you give people sand, they will still say, ‘I am blessed.’Back to the book of Romans, “He will give eternal life to those who KEEP on doing what is good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers.” (Romans 2:7 NLT)There is a point of believing and a point of ‘KEEP on DOING’. The two are important and here, it emphasizes the ‘KEEP on DOING’. That is holy living. Those who keep on living holy are the ones who will gain immortality. Immortality simply means eternal salvation. It refers to when we will be raptured. Don’t let anyone bamboozle you with grammar. Immorality or eternal salvation is when will be RAPTURED. Then, we cannot die again and we will live forever (eternally). Note that the Scripture says: it is to be gained not already gained.If am feeling sick and I say, I am healed by faith. It does not mean that, I have it but I will have it. So, I am immortal by faith and will have it when Christ comes but if I refused to KEEP on DOING, I will lose it. Action follows faith. If you think that I’m wrong, believe that you already passed your exams but refuse to read for it.