Romans 5:1

Romans 5:1

Romans 5:1 says, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." The end of Romans Chapter 3 and all of Romans Chapter 4 told us about the doctrine of justification by faith. Now in Romans Chapter 5 we are going to start looking into some of the results of justification by faith. You place your faith in Christ as your Savior, and God declares you justified. The first result of being justified by faith is stated here in Rom. 5:1 - peace: "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Peace is an important part of human existence. Humans have always sought for peace, but have rarely found it. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God." But Jeremiah said that there is a people who will cry, "Peace, peace" when there is no peace. In order to find peace you must be at peace with yourself and you must possess an inner tranquility, and in order to find that, you must be at peace with God. Some people in a certain sense are still at war with God. They have a resistance to God and the things of God that they sometimes are not even aware of. That’s why they oppose the things of God the way that they do. Of course, their opposition will prove to be in vain. It doesn’t even make sense that a mere mortal would oppose the Almighty God of the universe. But it happens. Paul the Apostle was even once in opposition to the worship of Jesus as Messiah, but when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, Jesus said to him, "It is hard for you to kick against the thorns." Anyone who opposes God actually opposes himself, because God offers the best and God offers peace.

Notice that Rom. 5:1 says that; "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." If you want to find lasting peace, and the most important kind of peace, then you must find peace with God. It is through Jesus that we become reconciled to God and find the peace that only He can give by the forgiveness of sins. He is called the Prince of Peace, and Jesus said to His disciples, "My peace I give unto you." No wonder that humans can’t find peace with each other, if they have not yet found peace with God.

Two other things are mentioned in Rom. 5:2 as results of the justification by faith. One is "grace", and the other is "hope of the glory of God." Rom. 5:2 says, "By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Grace speaks of the free gift of God. Grace is God doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves. We need grace in order to have salvation. Once we have been justified we stand in grace and we continually rely upon grace. We can always be confident that more grace is available from God for any circumstance. That’s good to know, because we are not sufficient in our own strength to deal with the struggles of life. We need grace, and we have it, because God is there to help us. He will enable us because of the abundant supply of grace. Don’t rely upon your own strength. Rely upon the grace of God to do what needs to be done.

The glory of God speaks of the resplendent majesty that only exists at the throne of God in the heaven of heavens. God is with us now, but we cannot see Him. He seems to be a God that hides Himself. It is His will that in our current state we live by faith and not by sight. But that’s only temporary. Life as we know it is only temporary. Those who go to heaven will see God one day, and they will share in the resplendent majesty of His glory. Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." And Paul said that this was something to rejoice about, to look forward to, with a kind of hope that is both sure and certain, and that stretches into eternity: "hope of the glory of God."

Paul mentioned in Rom.5:2 that we can rejoice about the glory of God for which we are now destined because we have justification by faith through the grace that is in Jesus. And then he mentioned other things to also rejoice about. Rom. 5:3-5 says, "And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation works patience; And patience, experience: and experience, hope: And hope makes not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us."

First Paul reminds us to rejoice about what is going to happen to us in the next life. We should rejoice that we are going to end up in heaven for eternity, and that it will be totally by the grace of God. And now in verses 3-5 Paul reminds us to also rejoice about what happens to us in this life. In order to make sure that every believer always has a reason to rejoice, Paul does not tell us to rejoice because of the good things that happen to us, he tells us to rejoice because of the bad things. He said that we glory in tribulation also. The dictionary defines "tribulation" as “great affliction, trial, or distress; suffering.” Do you rejoice when you have a great affliction, or a trial, or a distress, or a suffering? Paul said that he did, and that we could also.

There are many reasons that we can rejoice when we have tribulations. One reason is because they are temporary. Our ultimate destiny is eternity in heaven. All trials and sorrows and tribulations will soon be over. Another reason that we can rejoice in tribulation is because God is all-powerful. God will give us the victory. He will use even the bad things for some kind of ultimate good in the lives of His children. That’s what Jesus indicated to the disciples when He said to them, "In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

But in Rom. 5:3-5 Paul gives one other reason to rejoice in tribulations. He gives a practical reason. He is saying that experiencing the trials and sufferings of tribulation is an integral part in developing the spiritual qualities that you need to have as a follower of God and as a servant of Christ. The first benefit from tribulation is patience. As humans sometimes we are horribly impatient. Impatience is a very close relative to selfishness. Impatience is the inability to wait upon God to do something. And impatience is really a lack of faith. If you are an impatient person, what you really need are some real tough tribulations. And if you approach them in the right way, you will learn how to put things in God’s hands, and you will learn to be more patient. God wants us to learn to be patient. Therefore, He allows tribulations to happen to us. A lot of times you will hear people thanking God for all of the good things that happen to them, and so they should. But how often do you hear people thanking God for the tribulations? Paul said that he did, and the scripture says that in all things to give thanks. That means the good and the bad. When we get to heaven and we realize even more how that God was in charge of all things and how He used all things for our good, we will wish that we had been more thankful even for the tribulations.

Paul was thankful for tribulations because they resulted in patience; and then patience resulted in experience. Experience is very important in any endeavor. A wise employer will value experienced people. In most things in life, experience is the best teacher; and experience is no less important in the Christian life. As a matter of fact, zeal to serve God, without knowledge and experience, is a dangerous thing. Zeal and desire, without experience, will commit their sins and end in failure. There are some very important things about following God that you can only learn through experience. That’s why one of the qualifications given for a pastor in the book of First Timothy is "not a novice". A novice, an inexperienced person in the faith, should never be chosen to be a pastor. There are some critically important things that can only be learned through the experiences and the tribulations that come over a period of years of learning to live by faith in the promises of God. It’s through experience that you learn that God is true to His promises. It’s through experience that you learn to look on the positive side of things. And it’s through experience that you learn that God takes even our tribulations and sorrows and turns them into something good and beneficial.

And then experience results in hope. Hope is the fourth thing mentioned here that is one of the results of being justified by faith. Hope is one of the things that God wants you to always have. If you are going to live by faith you must have a lot of hope. We use the word ‘hope’ quite a bit in our culture, but there is a difference in the way the word is often used and what it means from a Biblical perspective. Sometimes we say, ‘I hope that something will happen,’ and it’s a kind of wishful thinking. We don’t know that it will happen, but we hope that it does. It might happen and it might not happen, but we hope that it does. Biblical hope is different from this. Biblical hope refers to having a positive attitude about a future event that will assuredly happen. There is no doubt about it. There is only one possible outcome, and that is, that the good thing of the future will assuredly come to pass. Our hope is the return of Christ, and our hope is eternal life with Him forever.

As believers we are supposed to live with this hope in mind. That’s why the tribulations are not so bad after all; because we look forward to something that is going to come after all of the tribulations are over. When we live with this eternal future in mind, we’re not ashamed of the gospel, because we are always mindful that this life is temporary. We’re aware of the love of God for us, and our appreciation of His love is not based upon what happens to us in this life, but is based upon what we know will happen to us in the next.

There is another difference between what we will call human hope, and godly or Biblical hope. Human hope is a kind of wishful thinking, and it also tends to diminish with age. Human hope is found in its greatest quantities in the youth. It’s when a person is young that their plans for marriage, and children, and career are often the most positive. The youth are most likely to have a lot of hope that these things will work out for them. But then the ravages of time begin to take their toll. The harsh realities of difficulties and sufferings and dashed dreams over the years squeeze this kind of hope out of some people; and by the time that they are sixty or seventy or eighty years old, their heart is no different than a dried or shriveled prune. Humans tend to have a lot less hope the older that they get. In contrast to this when you have the hope of eternal life in Christ, you can stay young at heart forever. When you’re ninety your hopes can be just as alive as when you were nineteen. You will know that you are on the threshold of spending eternity with the glory of God. And you can know just like faithful Abraham that in whatever time you have left, God can still use you. God is not limited by your diminishing physical capabilities.

If God did nothing else for us than what He has already done, it would be more than enough. Paul reminds us of what God has already done for us in Rom. 5:6-8. The Bible says, "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man some would dare to die. But God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

Paul describes you and me in three ways in these verses: without strength, ungodly, sinners. I am always amused when humans give honors to each other. This happens even among the believers. When they introduce an honored guest, they always have such praise, and such glowing terms that they use to describe them. But no matter who might be the guest, and no matter what they have accomplished in their lives, when someone stands up to introduce them, they would be very accurate if they said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce our speaker for today. The best way that I can describe him is to say that he is without strength, he is ungodly, and he is a sinner.’ And they could describe you and me in the same way. That’s the way the Bible describes all of us without Christ.

Paul is reminding us that Jesus was very well aware of our sinfulness when He came to the earth to die in our place. That’s the reason to love God, because He first loved us. He loved us when were unlovely. But it’s also a reason to have hope and to know that more good things are going to come to us from God. God did not strike us down and condemn us when we were separated from Him because of our sins. He planned our salvation and then He drew us to Himself. Therefore, now that we have come to God, we can be assured that He will not become displeased with us in the future either, and some day decide to strike us down. That will not happen.

This is what Paul says in Rom. 5:9-10, "Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." The previous verses told us our natural, human spiritual condition: without strength, ungodly, sinners. These verses tell us what God has done for us to counter that. He justified us, He saved us, He reconciled us to Himself.

Notice that the Bible says that we shall be saved from wrath through Him. Actually, in the Greek this Bible verse says that we shall be saved from "the" wrath. There is prophesied in the Bible that there will one day come a time of wrath, a time of judgment upon the earth. We know that God is slow to wrath, that He is very patient with the ungodly because He wants to give everyone every chance to repent. But the opportunity will end one day. The day will come, maybe today, maybe a thousand years from now, but the day will come when God will have had enough. He will have put up with the rebellion and wickedness of man long enough. He will pour out His wrath upon sin as it is deserved. There will be wickedness no more, because He will cut it off. Listen to the prophesy in Zeph. 1:15 and 17, "That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation...And I will bring distress upon men, because they have sinned against the Lord." The future coming of the judgment of God and the wrath of God is one the greatest and most consistent themes of Bible prophesy. Jesus also referred to that day. He said in Mat. 24:21, "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world." What Paul is saying here in Romans Chapter 5 is that another one of the benefits of being justified by faith, is that we know that we do not have to fear the day of the wrath of God. We will be saved from that day also, by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

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