2. The second part of the answer to the question as to how we are justified we find in Rom. 3:24. +"Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."+ The word translated "freely" in this passage means, _as a free gift_, and the verse tells us that men are justified _as a free gift_ by God's grace (i.e., God's unmerited favour) through (i.e., on the ground of) the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. In other words, justification is not on the ground of any desert there is in us, not on the ground of anything that we have done, we are not justified by our own doing nor by our own character. _Justification is a free gift that God bestows absolutely without pay._ The channel through which this free gift is bestowed is the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. We shall see later that this means through the purchase price that Christ paid for our redemption, i.e., the shedding of His blood on the cross of Calvary.
3. This leads us to the third part of the answer to the question, how men are justified. We find this third part of the answer in Rom. 5:9, +"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from the wrath of God through Him."+ Here we are told in so many words that we are justified, or counted righteous "by," or more literally, "in," _Christ's blood_, i.e., on the ground of Christ's propitiatory death. We were all under the curse of the broken law of God, for we had all broken it, but by dying in our stead on the cross of Calvary our Lord Jesus +"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree."+ (Gal. 3:13.) Or, as Peter puts it in 1 Pet. 2:24, +"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body upon the tree."+ Or as Paul puts it again in 2 Cor. 5:21, +"Him who knew no sin he (God) made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."+ We shall have occasion to come back to this passage later. All that I wish you to notice in it at this time is that it is on the ground of Jesus Christ becoming a substitute for us, on the ground of His taking the place we deserved; on the cross, that we are reckoned righteous. THE ONE AND ONLY GROUND OF JUSTIFICATION IS THE SHED BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST. Of course, this doctrine is entirely different from the teaching of Christian Science, and entirely different from the teaching of much that is called New Theology, and entirely different from the teaching of New Thought and Theosophy, and entirely different from the teaching of Unitarianism, but it is the teaching of the Word of God. We find this same teaching clearly given by the prophet Isaiah seven hundred years before our Lord was born, in Isaiah 53:6, where he says, +"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid+ (literally, made to strike) +on him+ (i.e., on the Lord Jesus) +the iniquity of us all."+ Get this point clearly settled in your mind, that the _sole but all-sufficient ground upon which men are justified before God is the shed blood of Jesus Christ, offered by Jesus Christ as an atonement for our sins_ and _accepted by God the Father as an all-sufficient atonement_.