Romans 5:1. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
The gospel is full of «therefores», it is above reason, but it is never against reason; it is the most reasonable thing under heaven «There-fore» it is a matter of argument. You will have to read the previous Chapter s to see how this conclusion flows naturally from what he had before taught by the Holy Spirit. Let us linger over these sentences while we read them. «Being justified by faith.» Is it so? Art thou indeed made just by faith in Jesus Christ thy Righteousness? Then thou hast peace this day and hour; peace within thine own conscience, and with thy fellow men, but what is much better thou hast peace with God. As soon as we are justified by reliance on Jesus, we cease to have any quarrel with God, and he has no quarrel with us; we are allies, we are in happy union, we have peace with God. Not shall have it by and by, but we have it now as our present glad possession, because we are justified by faith, we are now in the enjoyment of perfect peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. «By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand.» Since we are at peace with God we may enter his house, his door is open to us, we have divine welcome unto his grace, and we abide in it, abide in it with certainty, and full assurance.
Romans 5:2. By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Oh, what a comfort this is, to be rejoicing, especially, to be rejoicing in hope. It is better on before, there may be clouds and darkness here, but we can see the sunlight breaking yonder; «until the day break and the shadows flee away,» we will make hope to be our bright candle of the Lord. We «rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, and not only so.» When we once get into God's house, we rise higher in it, we go up another pair of stairs. «Not only so,» though that seems to be enough, to be rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God, and to have access into his grace, and to have peace with him because we are justified, but it is not only so, but «we glory in tribulations also.» We transform our troubles into gladness and glorying, we get spiritually enriched by tribulation.
Romans 5:3-4. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope:
Another hope, or rather the same hope rising up into another form. We begin with rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God by faith, now we get a further hope which is born of experience; the things we have tasted and handled of the love of God create in us a more radiant hope inferred from what we have enjoyed.
Romans 5:5. And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For where we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
What is the connection here? Is it not this: that the Holy Ghost makes us feel what a wonderful love the love of God is to us because when we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly? Wonderful love! When we were Godless and Christless, in due time Christ died for us.
Romans 5:7. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
Nobody would feel impelled to die for a man who is only severely and strictly just, he may command our admiration, but not our affection. Aristides the Just is, indeed, at last banished; men cannot bear a man whose whole character is bare justice, for they are themselves usually so unjust. But «a good man,» he commands our love, a man of that character who is gratuitously kind, and gracious, and benevolent, peradventure and it is a bare peradventure somebody might be found to die for such as he. It is not, however, very probable.
Romans 5:8. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
He did the utmost for us when we were the least deserving of it. Oh, what a love is this. Let it be shed abroad in our poor stony hearts, and commended by us to others.
Romans 5:9. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
This is a resistless argument, and should be the deathblow to all misgiving.
If he died for us when we were unjust, will he let us perish now that he has made us just, and completely justified us? Impossible!
Romans 5:10. 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.
There are three points which strengthen the argument here, which you will readily see by reading it at your leisure. The Lord our God who justified us when we were enemies by the death of his Son, will save us now that we are friends through the life of his Son. «And not only so.» Here we ascend again, it is ever higher and higher, something yet more, so that we are never at the end of this blessed record of mercy and grace.
Romans 5:11. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.
We are at one with God, we are perfectly reconciled to him, and we have at present, at this very moment, a great joy and delight in God. Now we shall read together the 71 st Psalm, just in order that we may see how good men in all ages have been assisted by their experience and their hope: and how their hope has grown out of their tribulation, their patience and their experience. The old man's psalm. You can recollect it, dear friends, who are aged, by its being 71 , it is just past the threescore years and ten.
This exposition consisted of readings from Romans 5:1-11; and Psalms 71:1-14.