The Results of Justification Romans 5:1-5

Intro: Good morning FE, we are glad you are here with us today. For those of you watching online, welcome to FE, we are glad you are watching this morning.

We have been talking about the doctrine of Justification by faith alone, the doctrine which explains how unrighteous people are declared righteous before God. We have learned that we are justified

by faith alone

through Christ life and death alone

by God’s free gift of grace and not by works

For God’s glory alone

Last week Paul explained justification by using the examples of Abraham and David in Romans 4.

As we move to Romans 5, Paul says “therefore, since we have been justified by faith” and what Paul begins to outline for us here in Romans 5 is the results of our justification by faith. What does justification by faith alone do for us? What are the benefits of our justification by faith? Open your Bibles to Romans 5 and read with me verses 1-5.

Romans 5:1–5 (ESV)

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 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.

Por tanto, habiendo sido justificados por la fe, tenemos paz para con Dios por medio de nuestro Señor Jesucristo, 2 por medio de quien también hemos obtenido entrada por la fe a esta gracia en la cual estamos firmes, y nos gloriamos en la esperanza de la gloria de Dios. 3 Y no solo esto, sino que también nos gloriamos en las tribulaciones, sabiendo que la tribulación produce paciencia; 4 y la paciencia, carácter probado; y el carácter probado, esperanza; 5 y la esperanza no desilusiona, porque el amor de Dios ha sido derramado en nuestros corazones por medio del Espíritu Santo que nos fue dado.

Pray

When come to the first result of our justification by faith alone we discover that

We have peace with God

First, the peace Paul is talking about here is the peace described in two enemies who become friends. What we need to understand is before a person places their trust in Jesus, before a person turns away from sin and says I believe in Jesus and I want to follow him, in our lives before Christ, we were enemies of God. We were a people at war against God, at war against the king, who is Jesus and at war against his kingdom, which is his rule and reign. We may have thought that me and God are ok, and there may be some here who have not placed there faith in Jesus, who think they are ok with God, that I don’t have a problem with the “big man up in heaven.” We are good. Or perhaps you have never thought about what your position before God is, for those who have not placed their faith in Christ, they are people at war with God, enemies of God. When we place our faith into Christ alone for our salvation and we are justified by faith alone, the result is we have peace with God, we are no longer enemies at war with God, we have peace with him. When we turn away from our sins and turn to Christ for salvation, in essence we are waving our white flag in surrender and God doesn’t take our surrender and place us in prison, he sets us free and welcomes us into his kingdom. Peace with God.

Second we have to mention that our peace with God comes through our Lord Jesus Christ. We live in a relativistic world, many people believe truth is relative, so they will say that’s your truth, but my truth is… But truth is not relative, it is objective, it is concrete, it is unchanging and what we learn here is that Jesus is the only way to gain peace with God, this is the exclusivity of Christianity, that there is only one name under heaven by which we can have peace with God, and that is through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus himself said “I am the way, I am the truth, the life, no one can come to the Father but through me” Paul describes this Peace with God in Ephesians 2 starting in vs 13

Ephesians 2:13–15 (ESV)

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,

13 Pero ahora en Cristo Jesús, vosotros, que en otro tiempo estabais lejos, habéis sido acercados por la sangre de Cristo. 14 Porque Él mismo es nuestra paz, quien de ambos pueblos hizo uno, derribando la pared intermedia de separación,15 aboliendo en su carne la enemistad, la ley de los mandamientos expresados en ordenanzas, para crear en sí mismo de los dos un nuevo hombre, estableciendo así la paz,

For he himself is our peace… through the cross Jesus tore down the dividing wall hostility which was the law and our law breaking and he fulfilled the law for us, so that when we place our faith in Christ, our sin is taken away and we clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and we have peace with God and he did this to create one people of God, by uniting Jew and Gentile under one banner which is Jesus.

Another result of our justification by faith is,

We have access to God’s Presence and stand in grace before him.

The Greek word Paul uses for access here is an interesting word, it is translated as access here, but the NASB gives a better translation of this word which is “introduction.” The word Paul uses describes a formal introduction. When Paul says “Through him (Jesus) we have also obtained access” Paul is saying that through Jesus we are formally introduced to God and we are ushered into God’s presence.

This is amazing and it was something new for both Jew and Gentile, access to God’s presence was reserved for a select few under the Old Covenant and those foolish enough to attempt to go int the holy of holies, or challenge the levitical priesthood, paid for it with their lives. But now through Christ, we are formally introduced to God and we have access to enter the most holy place, as we learned in our series in the book of Hebrews. As a result of our justification by faith Paul says this in Ephesians 2 again,

Ephesians 2:18–19 (ESV)

For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,

8 porque por medio de Él los unos y los otros tenemos nuestra entrada al Padre en un mismo Espíritu. 19 Así pues, ya no sois extraños ni extranjeros, sino que sois conciudadanos de los santos y sois de la familia de Dios,

Not only have we been formally introduced to God and now have access but we “stand in this Grace before him” What is Paul talking about when he says “this Grace” he is talking about our Justification by faith which is our standing before God, what is justification mean “declared righteous” we are not guilty, that is our standing before God, which grants us access into the most holy place. Church this should bring us joy and an overwhelming gratitude in our hearts because you have access to God because your standing before him is not guilty, and we live in this grace today, this is our standing before God right now if you have placed your trust in Christ.

What this access and standing guarantee, is that one day we will see the glory of God. Paul says we rejoice in this hope, which today this word hope has come to mean something you wish for, but the hope Paul is talking about is more than just a wish, Biblical hope is something you look forward to that will come to pass.

Many of you may remember the passage in Exodus, when Moses was on the mountain and he said God show me your glory, I want to see your glory and God said no one can see my glory and live, but I will pass by and give you a glimpse, I will give you a sneak peak, a preview. What Paul says here in Romans 5 is that one day, we will not just get a sneak peak, we will not just get a preview, but one day we will see the glory of God, one day, because of our justification by faith alone we will see the face of God, and church

We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Church, I am not sure if you noticed but the results of Justification by faith impact our Past, our sins are forgiven through Jesus and we have peace with God, we are no longer enemies. Justification by faith impacts our present, we have access to God’s presence and our current standing before God is in this grace, the grace of being declared not guilty. Justification by faith impacts our future, we will one day see the face of God and live. Friends this is something to rejoice in.

Our passage continues and Paul says

Justification by faith alone changes how we suffer.

Pauls says “we Rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, not only that, we rejoice in our sufferings”. First we must notice Paul is not saying to rejoice because you are suffering, suffering is difficult, its hard, it is not something we hope for, but suffering is a fact of life in a world corrupted by sin. Jesus himself said, “in this world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.”

What Paul is saying is peace with God, Access to God, standing in grace, rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God all of these results of our justification by faith should bring us joy, not just in the good times, but they should bring us joy when we are suffering, and they should even help us find purpose and joy in our suffering. Paul explains that our suffering produces endurance, this word literally means “single-mindedness, like a person training for a marathon has the focus and single-mindedness to force his body to endure the training so that he can run the 26.2 miles, suffering makes us focus on the things that are most important in life, it helps us remember what is lasting and forces us to prioritize our lives.

Endurance produces character, this word means “testedness” and describes a confidence which comes through experience. Before the person training for the marathon runs the marathon he has built up the confidence to run the marathon, because he has done before in training. Suffering, first leads us to prioritize our lives by what’s important and will gives us greater confidence because we have pst the test of suffering before.

Which leads to hope, another word we can use here is assurance. When we go through suffering and we come through the suffering with stronger confidence and we see how God was with us, it gives us a stronger assurance of God’s peace, of our access and standing in Grace and our hope in the glory of God. What suffering does, is it strips of the our things we place our trust in other than God, other things we look to for our peace instead of God, the other things we look to so that we can secure our future. Suffering drives us to the Lord, the place we find real peace, real hope.

When I look back on life, as far as I can remember, God has used the things that have caused me most pain to form me into the person I am today, when I was going through the suffering it didn’t feel good, but God brought something good out of the suffering, whether it was my parents getting divorced because of infidelity at the age of 5, or the death of my grandparents in my preteen years, or helping care for my sister Ruthie, who was born with cerebral palsy, or caring for our 3 children who were born with different variations of cleft lip and pallets, losing sources of income and not knowing how we were going to make it. God uses our suffering for his glory and in the midst of our suffering we can be assured that we have peace with God, in our suffering we have access to God and can cry out for help for in time of need, in our suffering we our secure in this grace that we now stand, in our suffering, we hope for a day, when we see the face of God and our suffering will be no more. This is our hope, and what does Paul say in vs 5?

Romans 5:5 ESV

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.

The hope we have will not put us to shame, we have the assurance of our justification by faith, we have assurance, that we have peace with God, we have assurance of our access to God and our standing of grace before him, we have the assurance that we will one day see the face of God, we have assurance that we can rejoice in our suffering because God uses it for our good. We have all these assurances because “God’s love has been pored into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” In Ephesians 1:14, Paul says that the Holy Spirit is “our guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.” When we talk about guarantee, a better word for it in our 21st century language is a down payment. In another we can be assured of peace with God, access to God, our standing in Grace, our hope that we will see the face of God, that God uses our suffering for our God because the love of God has been poured in our hearts through the ministry of the Holy Spirit who has been given to us as a down payment, as a guarantee. God says I assure, everything I am telling you is true, and here is how I going to assure you, I am giving you The Holy Spirit, who will make you more like, who will help you love like me, the Holy Spirit is my down payment it is my guarantee to you, until I see you face to face and God does this “to praise of his glory”