Main news for 8 February 2024

The apostle Paul speaks of our salvation as an accomplished fact. The apostle uses the perfect aspect of the past tense to emphasize that in God's great love all this has already taken place, already exists. And the person who believes in the reality of God's gift becomes a full participant in the salvation already accomplished by Christ.

The apostle notes that this is a free gift, not compelled by our works. For him this is important because since salvation is given to us according to the riches of God's mercy and not according to our merits, so that no one may boast, it follows that it can be received only by faith, not by works of the law. The apostle expresses this thought many times in different letters, because over us hangs, like the sword of Damocles, the temptation to think that by our labors we deserve God's mercy. But this mercy, this gift of Christ's Blood, is so great that nothing can earn it. As for good works, according to the apostle's word they are the goal and content of that new life in Christ to which we are called.