If you are familiar with the Christian faith, then you may have heard about the ‘Romans Road to Salvation’. If you are new to the faith, then I am going to explain to you what it is. It is a method used to explain the Good News (in other words the Gospel) of salvation using the Book of Romans.
However, in today’s blog post, as you see from the title, I will be explaining to you ‘From Courtroom to Salvation’. I have created my own version and method of explaining salvation. This method will explain why we need salvation, how God provided salvation, how we can receive salvation, and what are the results of salvation whilst using scriptures from the Bible.
I hope it is easy to understand, not just for those new to the faith but also those who have been in the faith for some time but want a clearer or easier understanding of salvation. If you want to learn more, read on 🙂
Character Profiles
Before we begin, I want to give you descriptions of the characters and symbols that I will be using to represent the actual people and things which make up the process of salvation. Here we go, in the courtroom we have:
- Judge = God
- Eyewitness/Son = Jesus
- Criminal = You
- Jury = The 12 Disciples
- Bail = Wages of sin
- Death penalty = The Cross
- Crimes = Sins
‘From Courtroom to Salvation’ Method
Now, let’s begin! Imagine right now, you are in a courtroom placed before the Judge and the reason being is because you have committed some crimes.
Out of this list of crimes you have committed a few, some, or even all.
List of crimes:
- Have another God who is not Jesus.
- Worship idols.
- Misuse the name of Lord your God.
- Don’t keep the Sabbath day holy.
- Don’t honour your father and mother.
- Have murdered.
- Have committed adultery / Lust
- Have stolen.
- Have lied.
- Have covet.
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23).
According to the bible we have to recognise that we are sinners. We have all sinned, I have sinned, I still sin. We can all look at the list and admit to ourselves and to God that we have done some things which are displeasing to Him.
The Judge now has to judge whether you are innocent of these crimes or whether you are guilty. He has come to the decision that you are… GUILTY. We need to understand that none of us are innocent from sin.
The Judge then goes on to say that your punishment is the death penalty. But this is a big BUT. Although, you have been found guilty, the Judge calls an eyewitness to the stand. The eyewitness is His Son. The Judge looks at you and tells you that His Son, the eyewitness has in fact paid for your bail.
On top of that, the eyewitness, His Son, tells you that He is going to take your place and take the death penalty for you, and that you are now free to go, to live a righteous and holy life.
You are in shock and confused as to why the Judge and His Son would do this for you, especially because you know you are guilty of the crimes and the eyewitness is innocent, He never committed your crimes.
You, the Judge and the Jury, all witnessed the eyewitness take the death penalty for you. And in that moment, seeing all His wounds and the pain He experienced for you, you are acknowledging that you, who was guilty, has now become innocent in the eyes of the Judge. You, who would have been a prisoner, you are now set free. You realise that you don’t want to commit crimes, you want to make the conscious effort every day to live your life on the right path.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16).
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we have might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:22-23)
“Instead, he entrusted himself to who judges justly. “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness: “by his wounds you have been healed.” For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” (1 Peter 2:23b-25).
If you don’t understand why God sent His son to die for you. If you don’t understand why Jesus who knew no sin would become sin for you. The scriptures above explain why. It all ultimately falls down to unconditional love.
God loves you!
Although you do not deserve, nor earned, no merit for His kindness and favour to do this for you, that is what we call grace and unconditional love. In spite of your past, in spite of your continued sins, DO NOT feel unworthy or invaluable of His grace and love for you. He saw you in the future and thought of you and incarnated Himself to become sin for you because, He loves you and wants you to not die but have eternal life and live a righteous life.
Know that you are free from your sins, and now you are a slave of God. You live your life to please Him, to do what is right in His eyes even if that separates and sets you apart from the world; that is what we call holiness. God calls you to live a life of righteousness and holiness. Obey Him and do it out of your love for Him because you know He loved you first.
When you mess up, because you will, unfortunately, don’t scrutinise yourself because we all still sin. You may feel that way because you no longer want to displease God and you have the intention to live holy and righteously, and that’s good. Recognise that you have come a long way, you were once a lost sheep that went astray but now you are found and have come back to the Shepherd, God.
The story doesn’t end there. All who had witnessed the eyewitness’ death buried Him. It has been 3 days since the eyewitness’ death. He had resurrected and appeared to the jury and they were shocked that He was alive. The eyewitness told the jury that He will send a Helper/Advocate called the Holy Spirit to help them live righteously like Him, and that they should tell you about it and others. So, that people would come to know who the Son is, what He had done for you, what is the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit can help them.
“that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.” (1 Corinthians 15:4-5).
““If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”” (John 14-15-18 NKJV).
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them everything that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of age.” (The Great Commission: Matthew 28:19-20).
Like the scripture says above the Holy Spirit is your Helper or in other translations your “Advocate” who publicly supports you. Jesus supports you and therefore put His own Spirit in you so that each day you are expressing His characteristics.
Don’t give up!
Ask God to help you through the Holy Spirit to become more like Him each day. Don’t do it by your own strength.
Progress over perfection!
Each day you have to make the conscious effort to decide “Am I going to choose to let my sins control me? Or am I going to choose die to my sins?”. Choose to die to your sins, because on the cross Jesus made the exchange of your sins, for His righteousness.
Don’t stop there.
Go and tell people about Jesus, share your testimony to them so that they too can come to learn who Jesus is, what He is capable of doing in their lives, so that they can accept Him into their lives.
The jury have come to you and told you about the Advocate who is going to publicly help you to live a better life, consciously making changes to not commit crimes anymore. Overtime, with the help of the Advocate you have come to notice that you are slowly changing your ways, from not committing the crimes you used to do. And believe and professed that it is because of what the Judge and the eyewitness; the Son, did for you that you have been saved.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believed in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9).
As I come to a close, I want you to know that when you accept Jesus in your life, that you believe He is Lord and that He raised from the dead, God promises that you “WILL” be saved. You can surely live a new life, your past is in the past, and you can make the decision TODAY to live a new life in Christ Jesus. Knowing that He loves you and that’s why He died and resurrected for you. He will help you change your ways so that you can intentionally do the right things instead of committing sin, through the help of His Holy Spirit, which is alive in you if you make Him your Lord and Saviour.
If you want to give your life to Christ say this prayer:
“God, I recognise that I am a sinner. And I thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross for my sins, so that I can be free and have eternal life. Today I give you my life. I turn from everything that is not like you. And I turn to you. Lord deliver me, heal me and transform me. I accept the resurrection and that you are alive in me. Send your Holy Spirit to live through me in Jesus name, Amen.”
Heaven is rejoicing right now. You were once a lost sheep now you have returned to the Shepherd, Jesus Christ who is God. I am so happy with the decision you made; you should be proud of yourself.
For those who are still sceptic or doubting I recommend watching ‘The Case for Christ’ on YouTube. It is a documentary movie based on a true story of an atheist who tried to prove Christianity was false, but ended up finding so much evidence that it was true, and gave his life to Christ.
Follow F.A.I.T.H Instagram @forallisthroughhim and keep up with our blog posts to learn more about Jesus and how to live a faith-filled Christian life.
Stay blessed,
Divine L.
Hi, I am Divine L., your sister-in-F.A.I.T.H., who is passionate about discipling Christian girls to be a walking embodiment of Jesus Christ in their daily lives and to help young girls and woman become who God destined for them to become. It is a great blessing to welcome you to the F.A.I.T.H. sisterhood!