Given access by faith

Passage: Romans 14 (ESV Bible Online).

Romans 14 shows that the doctrine of justification has immediate social consequences and demands.  If God has judge people righteous we may not find them unacceptable at the table especially.

It also ties in justification to the entire Levitical system of access and cleanliness.  God had a home and a table and different people had differing degrees of access.  Thus, in a situation that is obviously all about justification, we learn that one’s heart can be “cleansed… by faith” (Acts 15.9).

There is more.  God says that his purpose in calling Paul and sending him to the Gentiles is so “that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”  The New Testament designation of all believers as “saints” may itself be a demonstration of how justification only by faith radically restructures the people of God, both admitting Gentiles and denying any special priesthood within.

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