I don’t think it’s an accident that I’ve breezed through the New Testament portion of the Daily Bread’s guide to reading through the entire Bible in One Year.
It’s for me to slow down and really take my time in the Epistles of Paul. For instance, a couple of days back I did some coverage on Romans 4… and it looks like today, I’m going to need to cover the next chapter before I continue doing any reading through the New Testament.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
First verse and I’m already so happy. I mean, there really was nothing on our part – nothing for us to do, no works to achieve for us to have both justification, and peace with God. Even having faith isn’t an act on our part initially – no, it’s the Holy Spirit that allows us to hear the Word of God FIRST, and we’re the ones who let faith arise in us. It’s Christ who was born, who died, who rose again, and who ascended into heaven for us – and it’s only from and through Christ that the faith that we claim to have has been authored in us.
Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
I’ve been thinking lately on writing a longer form of literature, if only to put together and share the benefits of our salvation… and going through what we have here in Romans 5, I’m thinking this is a good Scripture to start things off.
Because it’s through this Chapter that we’re able to see exactly that – what we all enjoy because of Christ and His finished work, regardless of who we are and how we were made. And while there’s already so much to unpack in the very first verse, we see so much more in the verses that follow:
Through ‘our Lord Jesus Christ’ and by the power of the Holy Spirit (1) we have been Justified by faith, (2) we have peace with God, and (3) we also have access (by faith into) this grace – a grace that serves as a foundation on which we stand, and (4) we have cause to rejoice (4a) in hope of the glory of God in the future or the days to come, and (4b) in our sufferings (in both past and present).
And just to dig a little deeper on that last ‘benefit’, it’s not any shallow rejoicing that we have in suffering, as if to say that it has nothing on us – no, in fact we rejoice EMBRACING our suffering, because we know that ‘suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope’; It’s a profound elaboration of how the secular world says that we never lose, but learn.
And learn we do – we rejoice in our suffering, and we are certainly and, more importantly, thankful for the suffering, simply because it ultimately produces hope – a Hope that confirms how God’s everlasting love has been poured deep into our hearts, again, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
I’ll be honest with you, because I wasn’t really sure for myself regarding the link between the hope we have and the love poured out upon us (and side note, I’m really going to have a talk with Paul when I see him in eternity about his penchant for ultra-compound sentences)… until reading this next portion of Scripture, where we read that famous line we love to quote about Christ, among other lines: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We have hope for the future because we believe Christ’s finished work addressed our past. The next line says that we have hope for salvation ‘by him from the wrath of God‘, because we have been justified by His blood.
I suppose I’m bringing this up not only for you, but for me to remember and to understand that we have no mere, manmade ‘hope’ that can go no deeper than wishful thinking… we have a solid hope, certain of our future because of what Christ did for us.
Rephrasing further, Hope without a Foundation is only wishful thinking. We have Hope because Christ is our Foundation…
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
…and what a Foundation we have! See here that we don’t just stop at saying that Christ’s finished work serves as the basis of the hope that we have; Through Christ’s death we have been reconciled to God, so through Christ’s resurrection we have been saved!
We see the intricacies, the details of His finished work, and, just as we discussed earlier, this is cause for us to rejoice, in our sufferings, and in hope of the glory of God; In fact, Christ did so much for us that the two ‘rejoicings’ work together: (1) We rejoice in our sufferings, because it leads us to hope in God’s glory, and (2) we rejoice in our hope in God’s glory, seeing His faithfulness in our sufferings!
Therefore,
There’s a ‘therefore’ there so we should probably recap what we’ve read through the chapter so far. I mean, I imagine Paul was being merciful to us in the ‘Therefore’ at the very beginning of this chapter, because he follows up with ‘since we have been justified by faith’… So I could imagine what we can insert before this ‘Therefore’ is:
We have peace with God, and access into this grace by which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God; A hope that has us rejoicing deeply, even in our sufferings, a hope that has us looking confidently into our future, for all that has been done to us in our past.
And so we continue, aware of the peace, grace, and hope we have in and through Christ –
just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
In so many words, we read that sin came into the world and death reigned over the generations as a consequence of Adam’s transgression… but those who receive the abundant grace of Jesus Christ, and the free gift of righteousness shall reign in life.
Therefore, (again)
as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
We reign in life because we are righteous, but we also reign in life because this righteousness has led us to eternal life.
I believe that the Holy Spirit continually convicts the world of sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16:8) with the purpose of bringing us all to allow Christ to author faith into each and every one of us, through the proclamation and hearing of His Word – The Gospel.
And when we allow faith to rise, we are saved; And regardless of our origins, our narrative, and the nature of our being, all of us who ARE saved have peace with God, confirmed by a righteousness that comes to us – a righteousness that leads us to eternal life.
Christ has brought us to faith, righteousness, and reigning in (eternal) Life, giving us a hope that runs eternally deep in a sinful reality doomed to death and oblivion.
I’m pretty sure we’re going to see another perspective to the goodness of God next time we go through this wonderful chapter of Romans, but this is what we have for now.
Here’s to taking in the benefits of salvation, and praising God in the process. God bless us all.
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