The Sure Blessings & Boast of the Justified
Notes
Transcript
Handout
PRAY & INTRO: What difference does it make to know for sure where you stand with God? What difference does it make to know you have been made right with God through the work of Christ, which you have received by faith? It quite literally shapes all your understanding of your present and your future.
To this point in Paul’s letter to Rome (chapters 1-4), Paul has established the reality and universality of our sin, putting us under God’s righteous wrath, and revealing our inability to achieve rightness with God by our works. But God’s good news is revealed in the perfect work he accomplished through Jesus Christ, in which God remains just while justifying the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom 3:26). God maintains his righteousness while also graciously declaring righteous those who have faith in him, based on the righteousness of Jesus credited to our account.
So we come to turning point in Paul’s epistle to the saints in Rome. Now Paul presses forward into the difference it makes to know you have been declared righteous by God through faith in what Christ accomplished. Paul beings now to show the lasting impact on our lives in relationship to God.
As Paul begins chapter 5, he launches into the marvelous blessings of being declared righteous by faith, giving us confidence to boast in hope that God is glorifying himself in us and will bring us home to glory.
Let’s read all of vv. 1-11 of chapter 5 since they hang together, even though our emphasis today will only give us time for the first part of it.
1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 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. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 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. 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 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. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
What does Paul express in the first couple of sentences here that mark a transition in his argument and set the tone for the larger section of chapter 5-8? The assurance of objective blessings from being declared righteous in Christ Jesus by faith leads to a confident boasting of assured hope in future glory in God’s presence. And that encapsulates a new way of living.
When God has declared us righteous by faith, believers are blessed with assurance of the benefits of being in Christ, causing us to boast in the hope of future glory in God’s presence.
When God has declared us righteous by faith, believers are blessed with assurance of the benefits of being in Christ, causing us to boast in the hope of future glory in God’s presence.
Let’s consider this in three parts:
The past activity of God to declare us righteous by faith…
… assures us of present benefits from God making us right with him…
… leading to our joyful boast in a guaranteed future where we glorify God in his presence forever.
1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
In a change of thematic thrust, Paul begins emphasizing the implications of justification by faith for all believers.
Justification by Faith
Remember that justification is a legal term signifying acquittal. In the context of Paul's letter, it means being declared righteous before God. This justification is not through works of the law (not through any achievement on our part) but through faith in God’s achievement through Christ. Rather than being a new concept, it echoes Genesis 15:6, where Abraham's belief in God was credited to him as righteousness. Abraham then becomes the father of all, both Jew and Gentile, who are right with God through faith—a faith that is now expressly in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, justification by faith alone is central to Paul’s argument in Romans, and central to the doctrine of salvation, and it is a cornerstone of Christian theology.
The blessings that Paul unfolds now may only be ours if we have faith in God’s promise to save through the Lord Jesus’s substitutionary atonement and resurrection life. By his redemption alone we receive a legal standing of righteousness based not on our merit but on the righteousness of our Lord. [repeat?]
But, Paul says, to those who thus have been justified by faith (the past act of God declaring us righteous), we may be assured of the benefits that come with God making us right with him through Christ Jesus.
The two benefits highlighted here are closely linked but are yet distinguishable: peace with God and access to his grace.
Peace with God
To have peace with someone means a cessation of hostility and the establishment of a harmonious relationship. [repeat] This peace is not merely a feeling but a state of reconciliation with God, from whom we were estranged due to sin (and even at enmity with God because of the enslaving power of sin over us).
Now although this concept of peace here is definitely one of objective reality and not a subjective feeling, this objective reality of being at peace with God, described as being reconciled to God in vv. 10&11, can and should still have applicational thrust to our ongoing experience of peace.
Paul himself tells the Philippians…
7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Now this is not just automatic, this sense of God’s presence that gives you peace, to have a sense of calm trust in God while the storm rages outside. Paul has just said in this context: If you will rejoice in the Lord always (v. 4), and persevere in patient kindness through affliction, and remember that the Lord is near to you (v. 5). And if you will gratefully petition him to help (v. 6), then this transcendent peace from God will guard your hearts and minds.
Paul continues there in Philippians… Focus your thoughts on what is excellent and worthy of praise (which find their highest qualities in God himself) and have less on your immediate situation (v. 8), and put into practice the Apostle Paul’s teaching and lifestyle (undoubtedly understood as that which accords with the life and teaching of Jesus). Finally, you must meditate on the fact that the God of peace will himself be with you.
For this application, I encourage you to go read more closely and meditate on Phil 4:4-9. But essentially what we are saying is that knowing for sure that you have peace with God, and that the God of peace is with you, then you can have an experiential sense of peace (instead of anxiety) because you know that God is providentially working.
We’ll see too how all of this significantly ties into the points Paul is making about hope.
Look again to the last phrase of our present text in Rom 5:1…
1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ
And “Through him” is what leads into the next benefit of access to grace as well.
Just as it is the Lord’s righteousness applied to us that we may be justified, so Jesus Christ is the mediator of peace with God and of access to standing in grace. The prophetic vision of peace in Is 53:5 proclaims that the suffering servant brings peace through his sacrifice:
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
His sacrificial death and resurrection are the means by which we are justified, by which we are reconciled to God, and by which we stand in grace to have ongoing access to God’s goodness. Without what Jesus accomplished on the cross and who he continues to be as risen Lord, none of this is possible.
Again, this too, that all is through the Lord Jesus, is central to the doctrine of salvation and central to the doctrine of the church: the people united to Christ by faith and thereby indwelled by the Holy Spirit (which Paul indicates in v. 5) are the the church, God’s people.
Union with Christ is what makes all to this possible. Through him we have peace with God, and through him we have ongoing access to God’s grace.
Let’s turn our attention to that next phrase, the next objective blessing as a result of justification by faith.
2 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.
Ongoing Access to God’s Grace
Once more, it is essential we understand that Jesus is the mediator of this more direct access that we now have, no longer through a priest as an earthly intermediary (as with OT Israel). The tearing of the temple veil at Christ's crucifixion (Matthew 27:51) symbolizes the new direct access believers have to God through Jesus. And study the book of Hebrews for further explanation that Christ is our perfect and permanent high priest.
But here in Paul’s letter to Rome, his point is that this access is not based on human merit but on Christ's redemptive work, which connects directly to the critical theme of grace.
What is grace? Grace refers to the unmerited favor of God. In the context of Romans, Paul highlights that we cannot keep the law sufficiently, and therefore God’s offer is solely by his grace, a central theme in all (or nearly all) Paul's writings. Grace is the foundation of the believer's relationship with God, contrasted with Judaism turning God’s law into a works-based righteousness to be right with God.
As we said with peace, Paul’s present emphasis is on God granting access through Christ to an assured, objective standing in grace. But from this truth readily flows application of ongoing access to God’s transforming and empowering grace. In the past it was God’s loving grace that sent Jesus (v. 6ff), and God’s grace that reaches out to save us by faith (Eph 2:8-9), and God’s grace to give us direct access to him through Jesus. So too, by that access to him, God grants us ongoing access to his grace in which the Holy Spirit keeps transforming us and empowering us to serve God.
Does this position in grace matter to our daily living? Because we stand in grace, the preacher of Hebrews can exhort the readers of Scripture to…
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
That sense of confidence from Hebrews to draw near also leans into what Paul says next about hope in Romans 5.
Being declared righteous by faith results in assurance that we are at peace with God and stand in grace. We therefore boast in the hope of assured future glory.
Boasting in Hope of Glory
The justified boast in a guaranteed hope.
It must be understood that when Paul references boasting, he is reclaiming something for the glory of God that man’s sin has twisted into a debase bragging about his own qualities and achievements. For Paul, the one who has faith in God rightly boasts only in elevating the character of God and the achievements of God. So one can boast in hope because this hope is exclusively tied to the character of God and to God’s achievement for us in Christ Jesus. We should absolutely boast in the God who gives us assured hope. That’s why in v. 11 Paul says we “boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Remember too that whenever you hear the word hope used this way in Scripture, do not think of a hopeful feeling of wishful thinking, but rather think of waiting on God with confident expectation. Hope = a looking forward to an assured outcome in confident expectation. Hope is confident expectation in the promise of God based upon the character of God.
Just as hope has a future-oriented quality to it, so also does this reference to glory. The verb tense of this boast is in the present, but almost certainly this pertains to the same future focus as hope itself. What we boast in is a confident expectation that God will bring us home to glory in his presence.
If I were to try to express the knot that ties together the threads of God’s glory as it pertains to us, I would say describe it this way: Those through whom God is glorifying himself as we give him glory are assured of the promise of future glory in God’s presence. [repeat]
It is also helpful to our study of Romans to know that hope is not only the overarching theme of these first 11 verses in Rom 5, but also that hope frames the entire section of chapters 5 through the end of 8 and is probably the central theme that holds this next major section together.
That’s how important it is for us to realize that God justifying us by grace through faith leads to an assured hope of future glory, which provides us with grounds to hope in God in our present living as we wait for glory.
In fact, Paul goes on to say, hope is most assured when we need it most—when we are afflicted. (We’ll only touch on this now and come back to it next week, if the Lord should tarry and preserve our lives on this earth.) We an boast in hope when we need hope most.
3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
Life is not a straight line. Life is not a beach vacation. Life has many pleasures, yes, but life is also full of struggle. Life is an ongoing battle for our souls as the forces of evil wrestle against the glory of God. So Paul puts life’s struggle in the context of the Christian life now lived with a sure hope of God glorifying himself by ensuring that we make it home to glory.
With this understanding of our present reality and certain future, (Paul says) we even boast in hardships that produce Christlike character in us, because that leads to still greater assurance of hope in God.
Hardships need not hinder hope. Rather, for the one united to Christ, knowing we are at peace with God and stand in his grace, persevering through hardships serves to increase hope because we are sanctified by the process.
5 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.
We see in v. 5 that hope in God cannot disappoint, cannot put us to shame, because God’s judgment of us is quite literally all that ultimately counts. Our hope in standing before God unashamed is further assured by our experience of God’s love in us through the indwelling Spirit he has given us.
Paul will then go into more detail describing God’s love displayed in Christ’s sacrifice, and how that shores up our hope in God because this unique love of God is what has led to our justification by faith, salvation from God’s wrath, and reconciliation to God (vv. 6-10).
Ultimately then, as we said, by boasting in hope we are boasting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ (v. 11). The prophet Jeremiah made a similar application.
23 Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”
[read twice]
From Romans 5:1-2 then…
Conclusion: Let certainty of hope in God focus your mind and settle your heart.
Conclusion: Let certainty of hope in God focus your mind and settle your heart.
Scripture is incredibly practical as well as intellectual, but sometimes (perhaps often) the most essential application for us is to get the truth straight in our minds and to align our hearts to submissive trust in God based on that truth. Behavior follows understanding and belief. In the way God has made us, it is belief that leads to understanding, which leads to change in patterns of our feelings and speech and actions.
Let certainty of hope in God focus your mind and settle your heart. Know who God is. Meditate on the gospel. Apply that trust in God to your heart and mind and every situation.
I want you to picture yourself as one who was a hopeless and helpless prisoner, having been rescued from the hopelessness of ongoing misery and certain damnation, now set free and adopted into the family of the one true King who rules over all. You were on death row deservedly, because of your traitorous sin against the King. But your sin he has forgiven by the payment of another (whom the King himself put forward), and it is through his righteousness by which you are now restored to peace with the King, and reconciled in your relationship to him.
Not only has the King done this by his grace that you have not merited, but he now grants you full access, by his grace and goodness, to come directly before him, seeking an audience with him and asking for his help. This he freely grants because it brings him glory to demonstrate the goodness of his grace. And because you are now positionally reconciled to the King and stand in his grace, he will himself ensure that you will stay the course as his child and ultimately receive his promised inheritance.
Don’t you see it, Christian? You have ample reason to boast of your hope in God that you are experiencing and will one day fully experience God’s glory.
PRAY
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