Romans 05(01–05)

Introduction

I hardly need to remind you that Paul began his letter with the bad news that there’s no difference between us, because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory God. And we are therefore justly liable to suffer God’s wrath against sinners. However, after the bad news, there’s the good news, which is that, though there is no difference between us, because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, nevertheless we are justified freely by God’s grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. So, because God is gracious, because of God’s abounding love for sinners, he sent his Son to redeem us, which means God sent his Son to rescue us from his wrath. And because of what Christ has done to rescue us from God’s wrath, we are justified.

And to be justified means two things. Do you remember? Because of Christ, God forgives us for all that we have done wrong. He’s able to forgive us because Christ took the blame for us when he died on the cross. He suffered in our place the punishment we deserve. And then, because of Christ, God treats us as if we’ve done everything right. So, not only does God forgive us for what we’ve done wrong, but God regards us as if we’ve done everything right. And God is able to treat us that way, because Christ’s record of perfect obedience is given to us. God regards his people in the same way as he regards Christ.

And from the end of chapter 3 and throughout the whole of chapter 4, Paul has been making clear to us that sinners are justified by faith and by faith alone. So, we are forgiven and accepted by God by believing and not by doing.

And so, we mustn’t think that we can climb up to God by our good deeds. We mustn’t think we’re able to earn our way into his good books by the things we do. Paul writes about circumcision, because that’s what the Jews boasted about. He also wrote about the law, because they boasted in that as well. They relied on those things for peace with God. And church-people today might be tempted to rely on things like our baptism or receiving the Lord’s Supper or being involved in the work of the church or serving God in some organisation. But none of those things count towards our justification, because sinners are justified by faith and by faith alone. We’re justified, not by doing, but by believing: believing in Christ, who has done all things necessary on our behalf to make peace for us with God.

That’s what Paul has been writing about in the opening four chapters of his letter to the Romans. And in today’s reading from Romans 5, Paul highlights for us two of the benefits we receive now that we have been justified by, or through, faith in the Saviour. The first benefit he mentions is that we have peace with God. The second benefit he mentions is that we have the hope of glory. And both of these benefits are related to what Paul wrote before back in chapter 3. Back in chapter 3 he wrote that there’s no difference between us, because all have sinned. And since we’re sinners, we are under the wrath of God. But now that we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God. And back in chapter 3 Paul wrote that there’s no difference between us, because all have fallen short of the glory of God. But now that we have been justified through faith, we have the hope of glory. And so, that’s what we’re doing to be thinking about today.

Peace with God

And Paul writes about the peace we have in verses 1 and 2 of today’s passage. He writes: ‘Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’. So, having our sins forgiven because of Christ and being accepted by God because of Christ leads to peace with God because of Christ.

And notice, of course, that Paul is referring here to peace with God. So, he’s not referring here to a sense of inner peace or well-being. He’s not talking here about a subjective sense of peace. God does give us that kind of peace. He gives us the ability to remain calm in the midst of chaos. Paul writes about this is Philippians 4, where he talks about the peace that transcends all understanding which God gives us to guard our hearts and minds. In Philippians 4, Paul means that God guards our hearts and minds when they’re under attack from fear and worry and anxiety. God reassures us of his presence and help and he prevents us from being overwhelmed by anxiety and he reassures us that everything will be okay. And that kind of peace is a precious gift which God gives to his people to help us.

But that’s not the kind of peace Paul is talking about here in Romans 5. In Romans 5, he’s not talking about a subjective sense of peace. He’s talking about an objective status of peace.

So, we’re to think of a law court. And we’re standing in the dock as the defendant. And the case against us is clear. The evidence cannot be disputed. It’s obvious to all that we’re guilty and God the Judge is about to pronounce his verdict and everyone knows that the verdict will be that we’re guilty as charged and we deserve to be condemned. And so, we’re just waiting for God the Judge to condemn us.

But instead of condemning us, God the Judge declares us not guilty. A moment ago, we were expecting him to condemn us and to send us away to be punished. But instead of condemning us, he declares us not guilty. And he comes down from his judge’s chair and he embraces us as a friend.

That’s what we’re talking about. We’re guilty sinners. All of us. We deserve to be condemned by God and sent out of his presence to be punished. But through faith in Christ, we’re justified, so that God forgives us and he accepts us as right in his sight. And instead of condemning us, he acquits us and he welcomes us into his kingdom. In fact, it’s even better than that, because it’s as if he takes us from the court room into the living room, because he adopts us into his family, so that we’re able to call him ‘Father’ and he treats us as his children.

Later on in this chapter, Paul will say that we were once God’s enemies. He means that God was against us. Or in Ephesians, Paul says that we were objects of God’s wrath. God’s wrath was directed against us. And rightly so, because we’ve broken every one of his commandments and we haven’t loved and worshipped him as we should. We deserve to be condemned. But the moment we trust in the Saviour, we’re forgiven and accepted by God and all that enmity, all that wrath, is taken away and instead we have peace with God for ever.

Or imagine a battle field. God is on one side and we are on the other side. We are on the other side from God, because we have rebelled against him. We are rebels, because we’ve rejected his good purposes for us and we have chosen to go our own way. But instead of destroying us, which is what we deserve, God declares peace between us. He puts away his weapons and all thought of harming us vanishes and instead his only thought it to love us and to protect us always.

That’s what Paul is talking about here. Not an inner sense of peace, but peace with God. Peaceful relations with God. Reconciliation with God through the Lord Jesus Christ who gave up his life on the cross to pay for our sins and who shares his record of perfect obedience with us, so that God treats us as he would treat his perfect Son.

And Paul says that through the Lord Jesus Christ we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. When Paul refers to God’s grace, he usually means God’s kindness to sinners. And so, we say that we’re justified by grace, which means God justifies us freely. He justifies us because of his kindness to us in Christ. But he’s using the word ‘grace’ in a slightly different way in verse 2. He’s using it to refer to our status before God or to our standing before God. Before we believed and were justified, we were standing under God’s wrath. God could rightly pour his wrath upon us. But now that we have believed and are justified, we’re no longer standing under God’s wrath. We’re now standing under God’s grace. It’s as if we were taken from one room to another. In the first room, all we could expect from God were bad things. But in the next room, all we receive from God are good things. In this room, he pours out on us his grace and mercy and love and kindness and goodness. In this room, everything is arranged for our good. And access into this new room is through faith in Jesus Christ. Believing in the Saviour is the key which opens the door for us so that we’re able to move from the place of God’s wrath to the place of God’s grace.

And so, justification through faith in Christ leads to peace with God. There’s no difference between us, because all have sinned and therefore all are under the wrath of God. But through faith in Christ we are forgiven and we are accepted by God and we have peace with him for ever.

Hope

And justification through faith in Christ also leads to the hope of glory.

When I preached on Romans at the midweek, I used the image of a car which has been driven hard so that it’s covered in scratches and dents and the paint is chipped and it’s dirty and the tyres are flat and the lights are broken. It’s a wreck and it’s fit only for the scrap heap.

Well, when Paul wrote in chapter 3 that there is no difference between us, because we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, he was saying we’re like that car. Our lives are a wreck, because we’ve all become sinful and corrupt. Our lives are broken. We are broken. And we’re broken in every way: in the way we think and in the way we feel and in the desires we have and in what we choose to do. So, God gave us minds to know him, but we get bored by God and we’d rather think about other things. God gave us hearts to love him, but we love and desire other things more than we love him. God gave us wills to obey him, but we disobey him all the time. God made us in his image to reflect his glory on the earth. But we have fallen so very short of being like God.

But now that we’ve been justified through faith in Christ, we can rejoice because we’ll not be broken for ever. The day is coming when God will restore us to the way we were always meant to be. In fact, he will renew us and make us better than we’ve ever been before. He’ll even make us better than Adam was in the beginning. And for ever and for ever, in the presence of God, we’re reflect the glory of God the way we were always meant to do.

We’re not there yet. But we’re able to rejoice, because we now have this hope inside us. We are hopeful that we’ll not always be broken, because the day is coming when Christ the Saviour will return and he’ll bring us into God’s presence, where we’ll be made perfect in body and soul and we’ll be perfectly holy and happy as we gaze upon the glory of our God in the life to come. And we have this hope, because we’ve been justified through faith in the Saviour.

And look what Paul goes on to say in verse 3. He says that not only so, but we also rejoice in our suffering. So, right now we can rejoice because of what God has planned for us in the future. But we can also rejoice right now in our present suffering.

And we all know what it’s like to suffer, because this life is a life of troubles and trials and sorrow and suffering and weeping. From the moment we’re born to the moment we die we have to put up with all kinds of sorrow. Some people suffer far more sorrows than others, but everyone knows what it is to suffer because of sickness or because of loss or because of disappointment and because of the things people do to us.

But Paul says we can rejoice in our suffering. He doesn’t mean we can rejoice because of our suffering. He’s not a masochist who takes pleasure in suffering. And he doesn’t have a martyr complex so that he seeks it out. But he’s saying that we can rejoice in the midst of our suffering, because our suffering is not entirely without benefit to us. Our suffering produces something good in us. Paul says in verse 3 that we know that suffering produces perseverance.

I wonder, do you know this? Some people can go through life without learning very much about life. Even Christians can go through life without learning very much about the Christian life and the way God works in our lives and how God uses the troubles and trials of life for our good. And so, do you know this? Do you know that suffering produces perseverance? And perseverance produces character. And character produces hope. Do you know this?

How does suffering produce perseverance? Think of the runner who can run far longer distances than you or I. How is he able to do it? Think of the cyclist who can cycle far longer distances that you or I. How can she do it? Think of the ice-skater who gets up after every fall and gets on with it. How can he do it? They can do it because all of them have endured the pain of years of training and practising. When you and I are relaxing in front of the TV, the runner is out on the road and the cyclist is on her bike and the skater has fallen lots of times and is always picking himself up and he keeps going. Through all their suffering they have developed perseverance. They have developed the ability to keep going. To stick at it. They have developed stickability. Endurance. And when you come across an elderly Christian who has suffered much in their lives, there you’ll find someone who has developed perseverance and endurance, because they’ve faced so very much, but they’ve kept the faith and they’ve kept going.

And perseverance produces character. And the Greek word Paul uses means ‘tested character’. In the Lord’s parable of the seed and the sower, he talks about the seed that falls on rocky ground. And the plant that grew up from that seed did not last. It soon withered and died. And the Lord explained that it stands for those who receive the gospel with joy. They’re converted quickly. But when trouble or persecution comes, they quickly give up the faith. Their faith was tested and to became clear that it was not real. On the other hand, the faith of others is tested again and again and again by suffering. Their faith is tested. Their Christian commitment is tested. Their obedience is tested. And the test reveals that their faith is real, because they keep going with the faith.

And a tested character produces hope. And it produces hope because when believers suffer much we begin to long for the new and better world to come, when Christ comes again to bring his people into the presence of God. And there in the presence of God, we’ll be made perfectly happy for ever. All the sorrow and suffering of this life will be over. All loss and disappointment and pain and sickness will disappear. And that’s what we long for more and more when we endure suffering and sorrow and affliction in this life.

God’s love

And, says Paul, such hope does not disappoint us. Or another way of putting it is that such hope does not put us to shame. We would be put to shame if our hope for the future proved to be wrong. We would be put to shame if what we were hoping for turned out to be false. If the life to come was nothing like we believe it to be, then we could be disappointed and embarrassed. But our hope for the future does not put us to shame.

Why not? Because — says Paul — God has poured his love into our hearts by his Spirit.

What’s the connection between our hope for the future and God pouring his love into our hearts now by his Spirit? Well, once we realise in this life how much God loves us, then we have no reason to worry about what God will do for us in the future. So, I was listening to a podcast recently when one of the hosts was talking about his wife who loves him and who always loves to arrange special treats for him on his birthday. And his birthday is coming up and he was quite confident that his wife will do something special for him, because he knows she loves him and he knows she loves doing that kind of thing for him. And once we know how much God loves us and how much God loves doing good things for us, then we can be confident that the life to come will be wonderful. In fact, it will be far, far, far better than we can now imagine.

And we can know how much God loves us and we can know how much he loves doing things for us because he pours his love into our hearts by his Spirit. In other words, his Spirit, living in every believer, persuades us and convinces us and reassures us of God’s love for us. The Holy Spirit impresses on our hearts the greatness of God’s overflowing love for us.

And the Holy Spirit does this by making use of the things we do here on Sundays. Through the reading and preaching of God’s word, the Holy Spirit works in our hearts to persuade us that the things we’re hearing about God’s love and what he has done for us by his Son are true. And through the sacraments, the Holy Spirit works in our hearts to persuade us that God loves us so much that he did not spare his Son, but he gave him up to death on the cross for us and for our salvation. He persuades us that the Son of God loves us so much that he was willing to give up his life and to die for us and for our salvation. And once we’re persuaded of God’s love for us, then we can be confident that what we’re hoping for in the future will happen, because God, who loves us, will ensure that it happens.

Conclusion

And this is what we should be praying for. We should be praying for God to pour out his love into our hearts by his Spirit so that every single one of us will know deep down in our hearts and souls the greatness of God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. May we come away from church every Sunday knowing that God loves us.

And because we’ve been justified through faith, we should rejoice because we have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. And because we’ve been justified through faith, we should rejoice because of the hope of glory which God has given to us through the Lord Jesus Christ.