Acts 13:38-39
38-41. the forgiveness of sins—the first necessity of the sinner, and so the first experienced blessing of the Gospel.
39. by him all that believe are justified from all things—The sense requires that a pause in the sentence be made here: "By him the believer is absolved from all charges of the law." What follows,
from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses—is not an exceptional but an explanatory clause. The meaning is not, "Though the law justifies from many things, it cannot justify from all things, but Christ makes up all deficiencies"; but the meaning is, "By Christ the believer is justified from all things, whereas the law justifies from nothing." (Note.—The deeper sense of justification, the positive side of it, is reserved for the Epistles, addressed to the justified themselves: and whereas it is the resurrection of Christ here, and throughout the Acts chiefly, which is dwelt on, because the first thing in order to bring peace to the guilty through Christ was to establish His Messiahship by His resurrection, in the Epistles to believers His death as the way of reconciliation is fully unfolded).Romans 3:22
22. by faith of—that is, "in"
Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe—that is, perhaps, brought nigh "unto all" men the Gospel, and actually "upon all" believing men, as theirs in possession [LUTHER and others]; but most interpreters understand both statements" of believers as only a more emphatic way of saying that all believers, without distinction or exception, are put in possession of this gratuitous justification, purely by faith in Christ Jesus. for there is no difference.Romans 3:24
24. justified freely—without anything done on our part to deserve.
by his grace—His free love. through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus—a most important clause; teaching us that though justification is quite gratuitous, it is not a mere fiat of the divine will, but based on a "Redemption," that is, "the payment of a Ransom," in Christ's death. That this is the sense of the word "redemption," when applied to Christ's death, will appear clear to any impartial student of the passages where it occurs.1 John 1:7
7. Compare Eph 5:8, 11-14. "WE WALK"; "God is (essentially in His very nature as 'the light,' 1Jo 1:5) in the light." WALKING in the light, the element in which God Himself is, constitutes the test of fellowship with Him. Christ, like us, walked in the light (1Jo 2:6). ALFORD notices, Walking in the light as He is in the light, is no mere imitation of God, but an identity in the essential element of our daily walk with the essential element of God's eternal being.
we have fellowship one with another—and of course with God (to be understood from 1Jo 1:6). Without having fellowship with God there can be no true and Christian fellowship one with another (compare 1Jo 1:3). and—as the result of "walking in the light, as He is in the light." the blood of Jesus . . . cleanseth us from all sin—daily contracted through the sinful weakness of the flesh, and the power of Satan and the world. He is speaking not of justification through His blood once for all, but of the present sanctification ("cleanseth" is present tense) which the believer, walking in the light and having fellowship with God and the saints, enjoys as His privilege. Compare Joh 13:10, Greek, "He that has been bathed, needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." Compare 1Jo 1:9, "cleanse us from all unrighteousness," a further step besides "forgiving us our sins." Christ's blood is the cleansing mean, whereby gradually, being already justified and in fellowship with God, we become clean from all sin which would mar our fellowship with God. Faith applies the cleansing, purifying blood. Some oldest manuscripts omit "Christ"; others retain it.