Justification is now purchased and paid for. But it is not yet applied. The sinner has not yet appropriated it and made it his own. How is this to be done? We answer: By faith. Faith is the eye that looks to Christ. It sees His perfect atonement, and His spotless righteousness. It is, at the same time, the hand that reaches out and lays hold of Christ, and clings to Him as the only help and the only hope. This faith, springing from a penitent heart, that realizes its own unworthiness and guiltiness, renouncing all claim to merit or self-righteousness, casts itself on the divine Saviour, trusts implicitly in Him, and rests there. This faith justifies. Not because it is an act that merits or earns justification. No! In no sense. Christ has earned it.

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