BEFORE Christ came the world was divided into two classes—Jews and Gentiles. The former were the seed of Abraham, on whom was enjoined the rite of circumcision, as the seal of God’s covenant. The Gentiles were outside the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise—without hope and without God. For the knowledge of God they had given up, and so were suffered to walk in their own ways. With what result let Rom. 1 declare.
God has given His only begotten Son that we might have eternal life, and have the knowledge of redemption by the Saviour whom, when He came, both Jew and Gentile despised, rejected, and crucified! But heaven has received and welcomed and exalted to highest glory this One who suffered on the cross, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God.
There are those now who form a third class—who have, by the grace of God, been separated from the world now guilty of this greatest of all crimes and hastening to judgment. These are now sons of God by faith in the Lord Jesus. They have eternal life, they know their sins are forgiven, they are going on to eternal mansions of glory. The world loves its own, but these are not now of the world; they belong to heaven—to the Saviour who died for them. To which class do you belong? Are you a sinner in your sins, or have you bowed to God’s verdict against you “Guilty before God”? He then declares His righteousness in His justifying the ungodly by faith in Christ. What a Saviour God! Thanks be to Him for His unspeakable gift!