Understanding what it means to be justified (Rom. 5:1-2)

 

Suppose Jim is a homeless man who lives on the edge of town, and begs for a few dollars every day on the street corner so he can have a meal at the end of the day.  He has few possessions that he carts around in an abandoned shopping cart that he found in a ditch somewhere.  He doesn’t look great and smells even worse.  He has no friends to encouragement him, no family to love him, no home to go back to, and no future to look forward to.

But suppose that someone came to Jim, and proved to him that he was a private investigator who had been hired and sent by unknown members of his family, who were very well off, and that they were welcoming him into their home.  Suppose also that they had promised Jim a million dollars a month for the rest of his life, no strings attached, and that Jim was given a receipt showing that a bank account had been opened in his name and that the first installment had already been paid.

And then suppose that, after the private investigator had gone, that Jim keeps living the life of a homeless man.  Suppose that he keeps the receipt, but does nothing with it.  Suppose he never tries to contact these family members.  Suppose that he never draws upon this bank account and this money that he has been given.

What would you think about Jim?  We would pity him, wouldn’t we?  We would think that he is probably not thinking straight, and that he probably needs some help and medical attention.  

But the Christian who goes around with his head in his chest, who is perennially sad, who thinks that all the world is against him, is not much different from Jim.  It is true that Christians can go through very difficult times.  We talked about the trial that precedes the triumph of faith.  But the problem is that too often we become so focused on the trial that we forget about the upcoming triumph.  This happened to the Israelites in Egyptian bondage, didn’t it?  We are told that Moses came to them and gave them this wonderful promise from God: “Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments: And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the Lord” (Exod. 6:6-8).  But what was their response?  It was this: “And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel: but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage” (9).  So often we do not really believe the receipts of God’s promises to us in Christ because of our anguish of spirit and the cruel bondage we are enduring.  You’re not the first to experience that!  And so we rob ourselves of the joy and peace and hope that really does belong to us.  If you belong to Christ, there is a heavenly bank account with your name on it, and it doesn’t contain a million dollars, it contains the infinite merit and worth of the Son of God for you, and it is your inheritance that you are expected to draw upon.  But too often we don’t.  We keep the receipt in our pockets, we say we are saved, we say we believe that Jesus Christ is a successful Savior, but then we go around as if we are eternally homeless.

Brothers and sisters, this ought not to be.  Thankfully, God’s word is given to guys like Jim, to people like you and me, to help us understand the implications of our inheritance in Christ.  This is what Paul is doing  here.  Having finished the first main section of this epistle, having given us this great and wonderful exposition of the gospel in chapters 1-4, he now goes on to unpack for us in chapters 5-11 the great and wonderful implications of the gospel. We need to think about these implications.  And in particular, we need to understand all it means to be justified by faith in Christ which is the heart of the gospel.   So that is what the apostle is doing now.  Note how verse 1 begins: “Therefore being justified by faith.”  Therefore, because all that he has written is true, what does it all mean?  What does it mean to be justified?  Well, we know that it means that our sins are forgiven and that we are given a righteous status before God because of the redemptive merit and grace that comes to us through the person and work of Jesus Christ for us.  But Paul is not satisfied with the mere statement of what it means to be justified.  He wants us to unpack for us the full implications of this reality, so that we will live through the Spirit and faith in the light of it.   And in particular, so that we will be able live in the joy that properly belongs to us.

You will notice three times in verses 1-11 that the apostle speaks of the joy and boasting that belongs to the Christian.  In verse 2: “we rejoice in hope.”  Verse 3: “we glory [same word] in tribulations also.”  And then in verse 11, “And not only so, but we also joy [again, same word in Greek] in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement.”  Actually, the word is stronger than just to be happy.  It means to boast (see, for example, 1 Cor. 1:29, 31; Eph. 2:9).  As Lloyd-Jones put it, everyone who is boasting is rejoicing, but not everyone who rejoices is boasting.   This is the former: it is an exuberant, triumphant, happy boast in our justification and its implications for us.  Listen, do you think the Lord wants his people to live in sadness?  Yes, there are times when grief is appropriate.  Yes, there are times when we should, for example, humble ourselves before God and mourn over our sins and the brokenness of the world around us.  We are groaning even as we are rejoicing, as the apostle will tell us in chapter 8.  But it is not the purpose of God to have his children always in mourning.  Let us not live with our hearts cloaked in black at all times, brothers and sisters.  Let us live in the light of the joy of the Lord.

And so I want to help myself do that, and I want to help you do that too, by seeing how the apostle unpacks these magnificent implications of the realities that accompany the justified sinner.  He does it by explaining them in terms of three words in verses 1-2: peace, access, and hope.  Let’s look at them together.

Peace

“Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1).  There are a couple of ways we could understand what it means to have peace with God.  We could understand it subjectively, so that it refers to our inner peace and the tranquility of our hearts.  “Peace with God” in that sense would be that tranquility of heart that comes from knowing that we are in a right relationship with God.  However, though we shouldn’t completely rule that out, the apostle is almost certainly referring to peace with God in an objective sense.  That is, we are at peace with God in the sense that, being justified, God is reconciled with us and the alienation that existed between us and God no longer exists.  Of course, we cannot separate these two aspects of peace with God because the experience of this peace in our hearts is only meaningful if we have this objective peace with God.  However, thank God that the reality of peace with God does not depend upon our experience of it.  On the other hand, just because you feel okay, and think you are right with God doesn’t mean that you are.  According to the apostle, that only comes to those who are actually justified through faith in Christ.

It is important to understand that peace with God means more than the cessation of hostilities between man and God.  That is certainly an important part of it.  If we are justified, we are no longer under the wrath of God.  “There is now therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).  We also have laid down our hostility to God (cf. 8:7).  But it means not only that there is the cessation of hostilities but also that there is a full reconciliation between man and God.  It means that whereas we were once alienated and separated from God, now we are united to Christ, and in him God is for us.  He is not just not against us, which would be good in itself – but it is more than that.  It is that God is for us.  He is on our side, as it were.  All of heaven is ours in Christ.  God loves us, he has befriended us, and he will therefore care for us.  Do we believe that?  This is not just some nice thought that you hang on the wall or send someone in a card.  It is a reality.  It means that Psalm 23 is the heritage of every believer. It means that God is our Shepherd, and that he knows and will take care of our wants.  It means he will cause us to lie down in green pastures, he will lead us beside still waters.  He will restore our souls and lead us in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.  Even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we need fear no evil, for he is with us, and his rod and staff will comfort us.  When we are surrounded by our enemies, he prepares a table for us, he takes care of us, he anoints our heads with oil, and even makes our cup to run over.  He will cause goodness and mercy to follow us all the days of our lives and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  That is what it means to have peace with God.  It is the possession of every one who is justified, not by works, but freely and by grace through faith in Christ.  

Access

But Paul does not stop there, does he?  He goes on: “By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand” (Rom. 5:2).  We are at peace with God through Christ, and that means further that we have access to God through him.  God welcomes us into his presence.  The word “access” here is used two other times in the NT, and I think it is instructive to see how it is used; it sheds light on its usage here.  First, in Eph. 2:18, which reads, “For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.”  Then in Eph. 3:12, “In whom [Christ] we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.”  In both cases, the access is to God the Father through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.  It is the same thing here.  We have access to God.  The word here means “introduction,” and the idea is that in order to come into the presence of a king or queen, you need to be introduced.  You can’t just insert yourself into their presence, or you will very likely find yourself in big trouble.  Sinful man can’t just interject himself into God’s presence.  We can’t just assume that God is going to receive us.  It is the folly of sinful men and women who think that they can just bebop into the presence of God any way they want to and any time they want to.  The Bible tells a different story.  Nadab and Abihu tried to enter God’s presence with strange fire, and God killed them.  These were Aaron’s sons; these were anointed priests!  Beware how you approach God!  He is holy and we are not.

But the gospel tells us that there is a way to be introduced to the Father.  And that is through Christ, and Christ alone.  It is through faith in Christ alone that we are justified.  It is through the Lord Jesus Christ alone that we have peace with God. And it is through Christ alone that we can be introduced into the very presence of God.

Not only so, but we are introduced in such a way that we can stand in his presence!  One of the things you see again and again in the Scriptures is that when men come into God’s presence, they fall down; they are overpowered by the glory of God.  But again and again, God takes his people by the hand and puts them on their feet again.  When Ezekiel saw the glory of God, he fell upon his face, but then God by his Spirit came and set him upon his feet (Ezek. 1:28-2:2).  We can stand in the presence of God, not because we are worthy, but because in Christ we are given this privilege as a gift.  It is “grace in which we stand.”  

What does it mean?  I mean, practically, what does this mean for me as a Christian?  Well, it means first and foremost that we have access to God in prayer.  It means that prayer is more than just a religious or psychological exercise that a person does to make themselves feel better.  It means that we really do enter by faith through the merits of Christ into the very presence of God.  “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord,” which is the condition we are all in outside of Christ.  “But the prayer of the upright is his delight” (Prov. 15:8). Did you get that?  God delights in the prayers of his people.  But, you say, I am not upright; I am a sinner.  True, but you are upright in Christ.  That is the whole point of the doctrine of justification!  And so we can go to God in prayer and know that he hears us, and that he delights to hear us.  And he will answer their cries.  Our prayers ascend into heaven like the smoke of the incense and heaven moves at the cries of his people.  Oh for more faith to take advantage of this great blessing!

Hope

And finally, Paul writes, “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:2).  One of the ways you can know what a person thinks is supremely important is to look at what they rejoice in and what they hope in.  The Christian rejoices in hope of the glory of God.  What makes this look so odd to the world is that this is something they do not have as of yet.  The apostle doesn’t say that we rejoice in something that we presently have, but in something in which we hope.  Hope points to something yet future.  What the believer in Christ rejoices in is not something that you will find at Costco or on Amazon.com.  It is not something you can buy or obtain in the here and now.  You will not find it in the courts of human praise.  You will not find it at the end of a bottle or in a bottle of pills.  You won’t find it in success or glory.  You can’t get it by education or leadership or entrepreneurship.  What the Christian rejoices in doesn’t exist here.

That is because the glory of which Paul speaks is not a created glory, but the glory that belongs to God himself.  It is glory which is eternal.  I think it was John Piper who said that God’s glory is his attributes gone public.  The glory of God encompasses all his attributes: his omnipotent power, his searing holiness, his infinite love, his unsurpassed excellence, his breathtaking majesty, his free grace.  There is nothing like it in universe.  

What about the glory of God does Paul rejoice in?  He rejoices in the fact that the glory of God is not something that God keeps to himself, but something that he shares.  Now I’m not saying of course that we become gods.  There is an infinite chasm between the creature and the Creator.  However, a king can bestow the favors and gifts that only a king can bestow without losing his sovereignty.  Even so, God bestows his glory to undeserving creatures.  Theologians make a distinction between God’s communicable and incommunicable attributes.  Of course God never in this sense shares the attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence.  But he can and does share love, holiness, and grace.  If there is any glory to be tasted and seen and experienced that is worth having for an eternity, it is the glory of God.  

But even God’s incommunicable attributes are matters of rejoicing for the Christian.  We rejoice in them not because we can have them, but because we cannot have them.  We don’t typically celebrate people that are less than ourselves.  Worship belongs to those who are greater than we are.  And since God is infinitely greater that the greatest creature, the worship which God deserves and in which we delight is something which belongs to a category all by itself.

The Christian is someone who seeks for glory (Rom 2:7) - not the glory of the creature, but the glory of the immortal God (Rom. 1:23).  Sin is a falling short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23) and so it makes sense that salvation is being restored to the glory of God.  Paul continually describes this glory as something which the believer will experience in the age to come: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Rom. 8:18).  It is called “the glory of the children of God” (8:21), not because it emanates from them but because it is given to them by God.  God makes known “the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy” (Rom. 9:23).  It is no wonder, then, that Paul would say that he rejoices in hope of the glory of God.

But how can he rejoice in it if it is something future?  If the glory of God is something not to be found in this world, on what basis can you delight in its future enjoyment?  He could do so because the glory of God did come into this world in the person of Jesus Christ: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” (Jn. 1:14).  The glory to which we are called to enjoy is embodied in the glorious person of the Son of God, who died and is risen never to die again.  This is why Paul begins verse 2 by the words, “through him,” that is, through Christ.  How is it that we come to have access into God’s grace and rejoice in God’s glory?  It is through Christ.  It is why Paul will say in another epistle, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil. 3:20-21, ESV).  It is why Paul will say later in this very epistle, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” (Rom. 8:16-17).  If you would see the glory to which you are called, look to the risen and glorified Christ.  

The hope of which the apostle speaks is not some faint wish.  As Schreiner points out, hope “means a sure confidence (cf. 4:18).  It does not mean that believers long to experience God’s glory but are not sure whether it will come to pass.  Believers are certain now that the glory Adam lost will be restored to them.”   This is in fact one the main points Paul wants to get across in chapters 5-8.  The theme in these chapters is that the hope of the Christian is sure.  The Christian’s hope is certain.  We stand in the grace of God – it is not something we move in and out of (5:2).  Our hope will not put us to shame (5:5).  

You could say that verses 1-5 constitute the theme of chapters 5-8.  We see this as the apostle works out his argument from this point through to the end of chapter 8.  In verses 6-11, Paul reasons from the greater to the lesser to show that we will be certainly saved.  Note the words “how much more” in verses 9 and 10.  If God has done this greatest thing and given Christ for us when we were his enemies and wicked, how much more will our salvation be realized in the age to come.  

In verses 12-21, the theme is still the surety of our salvation, this time by making a comparison between Adam and Christ, the Second Adam.  Though Adam brought sin, death, and condemnation into this world through his sin, “much more” will Christ bring righteousness, life, and justification to those who belong to him.  Just “as sin hath reigned unto death, grace also” will “reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord” (5:21).

What we need to understand is that in the next two chapters (6-7), Paul has not ended this argument.  However, he stops to deal with objections to it.  The chief objection is that, if grace is sure and our hope secure, then why does it matter how we live?  (See 6:1.)  This objection has often been brought against the doctrine of the preservation of the saints.  If our salvation is secure, it is said, then we can live in sin that grace may abound.  What Paul does in chapter 6 is to show that this objection will not stand.  Even though the believer is absolutely and totally secure in Christ, it is no argument for carelessness with respect to sin.  His argument is that the death and resurrection which secures our hope, also secures our holiness.  The saved are also sanctified.  

In chapter 7, the apostle goes on to deal at length with the law of God.  Why?  He does so to contrast the security which we have in Christ with the fickleness of the law.  That does not mean the law is bad or sinful or unwise (since it was given by God), but it does mean that the law is powerless to save, either to justify us or sanctify us.  However, what the law could not do, Christ has done (cf. 8:3).  Thus the apostle ends upon the triumphant note: “Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:24-25).

In chapter 8, Paul continues in this triumphant strain.  John Stott has noted that the apostle begins with “no condemnation” (8:1) and ends with “no separation” (8:38-39).   The believer has every reason to rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, because nothing can destroy or invalidate this hope.  This is not the uncertain musings of a person who is always unsure whether or not he will be saved and who has to be constantly kept in suspense lest he fall off the wagon of grace.  No, rather, it is the exultant boast of a man who knows that his salvation is secure in Christ.  No one can be successfully against the one who is in Christ (8:31).  Even in our deepest, darkest times, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (8:37).

In some sense 8:30 summarizes what Paul is doing in these chapters: “Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”  The clear import of that verse is that everyone who is justified (the theme of chapters 1-4) will be glorified (the theme of chapters 5-8).  Paul has dealt with the gospel in terms of justification.  Now he is dealing with the implications of the gospel in terms of the certainty of our hope in the glory of God and he wants us to enjoy it, live upon it, be changed by it.

So, friend, will you be like Jim?  Will you live with the receipts of God’s promises to you, as a justified sinner in Christ, promises of peace with God, access to God, and hope in the glory of God, and yet do nothing with them?  What should you do with them?  Believe them!  Rejoice in them!  Live in light of them!  

And what if you are not a Christian?  My friend, you cannot claim any of these things apart from faith in Christ.  But if you put your faith in him, the Bible says that you can claim all of them: “Now it was not written for his [Abraham’s] sake alone, that it [righteousness] was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:23-25).  And do you know why this is written this way?  “If we believe…”?  It is so that we will believe.  As John put it at the end of his gospel: “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (Jn. 20:31).  So come to Christ and believe on his name.  All who do so are justified, have peace with God, access to him, and a right to the hope of the glory of God.  And when you come, know that the doors of the church are open and we are ready to receive all who are willing to follow Christ in true faith and repentance.