What Is Peace with God?
So the goal of this morning’s sermon is the same goal of this entire series we’re doing here in the month of May. It’s that we want to have a renewed, clear focus on Jesus and what he has done. We want to have what Martyn Lloyd-Jones has said is characteristic of revival: we want to “glory in the cross” and “make our boast in the blood of Jesus.”
Now we in-ourselves cannot make revival happen because it’s an extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit, but we can, with the Spirit’s help, do things necessary for revival like focus on Jesus and his gospel. That’s the point of the series, and that’s why today we’re in Romans 5, verses 1–11. And there are two basic parts here I want to show you.
Part One is the question: What is peace with God?
Part Two is the question: How do we know it’s real?
Father, thank you for Jesus and thank you for what he has done for us. Thank you for this morning and for this moment where we get to open your word together, and see you. Show us your glory, we ask, in Jesus’s name, amen.
Part One: What Is Peace with God?
So Romans 5, verses 1–11 is one of the most amazing passages in all the Bible that introduces one of the most amazing sections in all the Bible. And this section runs from Chapter 5 all the way through the end of Chapter 8, which Pastor Joe will for us preach next week.
And if we’re tracking along with Paul in this book, Chapter 5 is kinda like a turning point in the argument he’s been making. That’s obvious in how he starts Chapter 5, verse 1. He starts by saying:
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith …” Which means he’s about to say something new, right? — But he’s saying it based upon what he’s been arguing in Chapters 1–4.
Paul has spent the first four chapters of this book explaining that every human being, Jew and Gentile, is guilty of sin and deserving of God’s judgment (that’s Chapters 1 and 2), and that the only way any of us can be put right before God’s eyes is by faith, not by works (that’s Chapter 3):
3, verse 20: “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in [God’s] sight …”]
3, verse 28: “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”
And as an example of this, Paul says to consider Abraham (this is Chapter 4). Abraham was declared righteous by God through his faith in God, and so the same goes for us today. Righteousness will be counted to us who believe (4:24). So whoever you are — Jew or Gentile — whoever receives Jesus by faith is put right with God. We are justified. That’s Chapters 1–4.
But what’s the point of being justified? What is the result of our being put right with God?
Well, Chapter 5, verse 1 tells us: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Everybody see that in verse 1? [That’s the answer.]
What does justification “get” for us? “Peace with God.”
And so, we should know what that means, right? If peace with God, Christian, is what we have, don’t you wanna know what it means?
I think even just the phrase “peace with God” is intriguing. I’m interested in that.
This past week my mom and dad were visiting, and I was talking with my dad about Romans 5 and what Paul says here about peace with God, and my dad reminded me of some old tracts he used to give out back in the 80s. And I remembered these things because he used to have them in his truck. They were these little blue rectangle tracts, and the title was simply: “Steps to Peace with God.” Because forty years ago that sounded like something people wanted to know about, but guess what? — it still is. And if you don’t think so, just ask around. Ask your neighbor or co-worker, “Are you interested in knowing about how to have peace with God?” Ask them and see what they say.
Because that’s what Paul is talking about here. And so wherever you’re coming from this morning — or whoever you know from wherever they’re coming from — I want you to know that peace with God is possible and those who believe in Jesus have it.
And I’d like to spend a lot of time explaining what it is. (When I started writing this past week, I didn’t plan to spend so much time on this, but I just couldn’t move past it. Before we get to anything else, we have to know what Paul is saying here.)
Three-Part Definition
So I’ll start with a definition and then unpack it. The question is: What is peace with God?
According to what Paul is saying here: Peace with God is the state of our relationship with God that includes a secure hope for the future that causes us to rightly boast in the present.
There are three pieces to highlight here:
state of our relationship
secure hope for the future
right boasting in the present
First: the state of our relationship
Right away when we hear the word “peace” we should think relationship. Paul is not talking about peace as a sentiment, but this is peace as a state. This is about the state of our relation to God. And the first thing that is just simply implied here is that “peace with God” is the opposite of where our relationship with God used to be. Just think about it:
Before we were put right with God, what were we? [we were wrong with God]
We didn’t go from neutral to righteous.
Before God declared us righteous, we were unrighteous — that’s how Paul describes our condition in Chapters 1–4. …
We were sinners guilty to the core;
we suppressed the truth of God;
we exchanged the glory of God;
we refused to honor God and give him thanks —
and being unrighteous like that before the one, true living and holy God of unspotted moral purity — that’s the opposite of relational peace. That’s relational animosity.
What we used to be, and peace with God is a state that is the opposite of that.
But secondly, and mainly here, we need to see that peace with God includes a secure hope for the future.
Second: secure hope for the future
If we’re looking closely at this passage, Paul wants us to know that peace with God has a future orientation. Look at verse 2.
Through him [Jesus], we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Now the first part of verse 2 is just a restatement of what Paul says in verse 1. Peace with God is the grace in which we stand. It’s a completely new realm of living. It’s the same idea, I think, as “eternal life” (which is the apostle John’s favorite phrase). Paul is talking about our present reality that includes security about our future. Look at the second half of verse 2. Peace with God isn’t only the current realm of grace in which we stand, but also: “we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
So we are standing here in this grace looking forward. Our present peace includes the certainty that over time our relationship with God will not diminish but only deepen, and on the last day we will not suffer God’s wrath, but we will share in God’s glory.
Our current state of peace in our relationship with God requires that we know we will only have more of God in the future — and that fact of our future is a big part of what makes our present reality actual peace. And we all understand how this works.
For example, if we knew that tomorrow something terrible will happen to us, it would change the way we operate today, right?
So Melissa and I, we don’t always eat dessert, but at our favorite restaurant there is a dessert that we really like, and every time we eat at this restaurant we have it. But in case you’re on the fence about dessert, on the dessert menu there’s a little quote at the top that’s meant to persuade you. The quote says: “Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.”
Now that’s meant to make you think, “Well then yes, I will have the ‘Mud Pie’ with chocolate, peanut butter and sticky Carmel peanut brittle.”
But if you’re like me, it actually makes you just think of all the people who died on the Titanic.
And it makes you wonder if there were people who ate dessert knowing that they would die. Just imagine that. Imagine that the people on the Titanic knew that it was sinking and they knew they weren’t going to survive, and imagine that after knowing that they decided to “seize the moment” and have dessert. If that were the case, I can guarantee you that the dessert was not enjoyed.
Because even in things like that, our present state of peace (if it’s actual peace) has to have some kind of security that what’s coming next will not be worse.
Paul would say the current state of our relationship with God consists in large part on what we know about our future, and our future is what we rejoice in now.
Our secure hope for the future is what causes us to rightly boast in the present.
So let’s talk about that. Peace with God means …
Third: to rightly boast in the present
I want you to notice the word “rejoice” in verse 2. It’s the same Greek word repeated three times in this passage. If you can, look at your Bible, and with your eyes, circle this word. If you’re reading from the ESV (like me), “rejoice” is used in verse 2, verse 3, and verse 11. (The NIV translates it “boast … glory … boast.” The NASB translates it “exult” all three times.) Each translation is getting at the same idea, but the more literal word here is “boast” (and that’s the word I’m using; that’s the way it’s translated elsewhere in Paul’s letters).
This is the same word we saw in Galatians 6:14, when Paul said: “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of Jesus Christ …”
This is also the same word Paul uses earlier in Romans 3:27 when after talking about justification by faith he says, “Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.”
So one kind of boasting, rejoicing, exulting is eliminated by the gospel. That is boasting in ourselves. That is the puffed-chest thinking that we’ve done something to make God favor us. It’s the hidden or stated way of thinking that says “God sure is lucky to have me!” That way of thinking has been obliterated by the way God has designed our salvation. There is no rationale for human boasting. In fact, in light of what God has done, to boast in ourselves is insanity.
So we don’t boast like that, but another kind of boasting is pretty important. In this entire passage of Romans 5:1–11, the only thing that mentioned here that we do is boast. Everything Paul says in these verses is the action of God. Through and through this is about what God has done, and our only part is the response of boasting in what God has done. We boast in what God has done now, which includes the hope of what he promises for the last day.
It’s that when your life in this world is over or this world as we know it is over, we will have God. We boast in that. We boast in that hope.
Because that’s really the only thing we have secured.
Here’s what I mean: you may right now be justified by faith; you could have a state of peace in your relationship with God, and your life right now in a snapshot could be horrible.
See, what do we do about suffering, Paul? How does suffering fit into all this?
Well, Paul says we boast in suffering too. Look at verse 3:
Not only that — not only are we boasting in future hope — but we boast in our [present] sufferings —
— And I want to stop here to say that if Paul stopped here this would be a ridiculous statement.
I think about PJ, a brother I went to college with, who died this past Tuesday. PJ started feeling badly a couple weeks ago so he went to the ER and apparently he was having liver failure, and things quickly worsened. All of his organs began shutting down, and the doctors told him he had two days left to live. He basically went from the ER to hospice. And he did a video about it to tell people what was going on, and he’s said, as he was struggling to breathe, [quote:] “They told me I only have a couple days left to live, which sucks.”
And he’s right. In that snapshot, he’s right. That’s horrible. And he’s not boasting in that. Paul doesn’t say we should. Look at verse 3.
We don’t boast in suffering in a snapshot, but, verse 3, “we boast in our sufferings knowing …” — this is one of the most important “knowings” in the whole Bible — we boast in our sufferings knowing that suffering serves a greater purpose:
Sufferings produces endurance
endurance produces character
Character produces a hope that shall not put us to shame. (And PJ knew that)
In the hands of God’s gracious care, suffering is a refining fire that strengthens our faith. We learn to press on and endure, and that shapes our character. It leads to real change in how we think and talk and live and that generates hope because we know that although we’re not yet who we will be we’re also not now who we used be — and that’s because God is at work in me.
And the work that he began, the work that he’s doing now, is a work that he will bring to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (see Philippians 1:6). That is the hope we boast in, and suffering only deepens the hope, and so knowing that, we boast in our sufferings. Not suffering in a snapshot, but suffering in light of the whole where we have the hope that one day we will be with God.
And all of that is peace with God.
Peace with God is the state of our relationship with God that includes a secure hope for the future that causes us to rightly boast in the present.
That’s Part One.
Now, Part Two: How do we know it’s real?
Part Two: How Do We Know It’s Real?
Paul says that this hope does not put us to shame. It will not be said on the last day that we made too big a deal about Jesus. We will not come to that day and experience any kind of disappointment in the promises of God.
But can we be sure about that now? The answer is Yes.
In verses 5–11, Paul gives us three assurances that answer the question: How do we know that this “peace with God” is not empty?
Now in particular, these assurances are about our hope, but since our hope is so central to our state of peace with God, I think we should have the entire relationship of peace in view. The whole of the state of our relationship with God, and especially our hope, is what Paul is speaking to. There are three assurances it’s real:
Assurance #1 (verse 5): God has poured his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit at conversion.
Now this is a tightly argued section. Look what Paul says in verse 5: Our hope (that is central to our peace with God) will 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.”
This is a reason for our hope being secure, and the reason is something God has done in our hearts.
We all have hearts, right? And now imagine that our hearts are like a cup. Well, for the Christian, God has poured his love into those cups. And his pouring his love into those cups is through the Holy Spirit he gave to us. (His love is through the Holy Spirit; his love is the Holy Spirit.)
And when did God do that? This is a perfect passive indicative. It’s something that has been done to us. So when?
I think Paul has in mind here our conversion. He’s talking about when we first believed in Jesus — when we were born again by the Holy Spirit to put our faith in Jesus.
Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free;
I rose, went forth and followed Thee.
That’s what Paul is talking about here!
Our conversion is when God gave us the Holy Spirit as the guarantee, or the down payment, of our future with God. That’s the way Paul talks in other places, like Ephesians 1:14. When we believed in Jesus we “were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it [in the future], to the praise of God’s glory.”
And now if we put that together with Romans 5:5 we can say that the Holy Spirit is that guarantee for us because he is the minister of God’s love in our hearts which we have contact with by experience.
Paul is describing something that we as individuals experience, and therefore it’s subjective. And I realize that something so subjective may not sound like an assurance to you at all. It might sound more like an “anecdotal fallacy” (which you can google later), but we just need to remember that although our contact with this love is our experience, this is a real objective thing that God does.
From God’s perspective, he really is pouring his love into our heart-cups. Because God is real and he does real things and he has a real Holy Spirit that he has given to us.And Paul says that’s a rationale for why our hope is secure.
And there’s more. A second assurance for why our hope is secure is in verse 6.
Assurance #2: God shows his love for us by the fact that Jesus died for us.
Notice the word “for” in verse 6. In this verse Paul is grounding what he just said, and we’re getting into layers here. Verses 6–8 are a reason for verse 5. This grounds the fact that God’s love has been poured into our hearts. How?
Because while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for us the ungodly — which is the kind of thing that just doesn’t happen.
Seriously, think about this: It’s extremely rare for someone to die for a righteous person, and there’s no way ever that someone would die for a mere good person. And yet what did God do? God did something unlike anything you’ve ever heard of. God shows his love for us — God put his love on display for us — in that while we were still sinners (not righteous people, not even good people, but the worse kind of people) … while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
And that is an objective, historical fact. Jesus is a real person, and he died a real death on April 3rd, year 33, just outside of Jerusalem, and his death was for you. His death is God showing you something.
It’s fascinating that the verb “show” in verse 8 is a present active indicative. That means the death of Jesus continues to show something. It means the one-time, historical event of Jesus’s death is the present, active message of what God thinks about you. He loves you. God shows, right now, that he loves you in the fact that Jesus really, historically, actually died for you.
So there are many pastors who preach without notes, and I’m not one of them. I have certain things I want to say certain ways, so I write them out and consult them when I preach just like I’m doing right now.
But my pastor when I was growing up: no notes needed. And it was amazing. He is a gifted man. But one characteristic of preaching without notes every Sunday is that you can tend to come back to the same things over and over. You kinda have your soapbox go-tos, and in a moment when maybe you’re not sure what to say next, you default to saying the same things, and my pastor had one of those. It was Romans 5:7–8 in the King James (and he’d say verse 7 really fast, and verse 8 slow):
Scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
My pastor would say this all the time, and I am glad he did. Because what Paul says here is about an active showing that is worthy of constant repeating.
And here’s how it fits altogether in the passage.
The present active demonstration of God’s love in the one-time historical event of Jesus’s death verifies that God’s got love to pour into your heart, verse 5, which is another layer of proof that our hope is secure, which means that our state of peace with God is legit.
Put simply:
How can we be sure any of this is real?
Because God loves us, and he proves it in the death of Jesus.
And there’s one more assurance in verses 9 and 10.
Assurance #3: God verifies our future salvation by having already done the harder thing.
And I want to leave most of what could be said here for next week’s sermon, because I know where Pastor Joe is planning to go. But to help set up that sermon, the logic Paul that uses in Romans 8:32 is the same logic he uses here in Romans 5. Start with verse 9.
Verse 9 says that because we have been justified by Jesus’s blood we will absolutely (much more) be saved by Jesus from the wrath of God on the future day of judgment. And we know this because of verse 10.
Verse 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.
Paul is saying:
Look, when we were God’s enemies (which we all used to be) — when we were ungodly sinners, God brought us into a relationship of peace with him by the death of his Son, doing the unheard of. God did that for his enemies.
And if God treated his enemies that way, then there’s no doubt that for us who are no longer his enemies but now his children — for us who now have peace with God through Jesus — then absolutely Jesus is gonna save us on the last day.
Our hope for the future is secure because God has already done the harder thing. God brought us into a relationship of peace by the death of his Son when we were his enemies, and that’s a lot harder than saving your beloved, righteous children from wrath. So of course God’s gonna do that, and more (Romans 8, come back next week).
Our hope is secure. We have peace with God. And we could spend forever thinking about the layers of wonder here. But how do we respond now? We close where the passage closes in verse 11.
More than any of this — more than boasting in the hope that we’ll be saved from wrath in the future, we boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We boast in God. GOD. Through Jesus Christ.
That’s what we do at this Table.
The Table
If you are justified by faith, if you have trusted in Jesus Christ, then through Jesus I invite you to boast in God with this bread and cup. By eating the bread which represents Jesus’s body, and by drinking the cup that represents Jesus’s blood, we are remembering what God has done. We are remembering that we have a secure hope, we have peace with God, and we have God. He’s our God. Let that be your boast.
