Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
The First great head of his subject-the proof and illustration of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith-being now concluded, the apostle here enters on the Second great division, the fruits of justification. These are of two kinds-those of Privilege and those of Life. The former of these is the subject of the present section, the latter of the two following chapters, while in the eighth chapter both are resumed and sublimely treated together. Of the Privileges of the Justified, four are enumerated and dwelt on in this section-First: Peace with God (Romans 5:1-2).
Therefore being ('having been') justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. There is another reading of this verse for which the external evidence is so strong, that, until lately, we thought ourselves bound to regard it as the true one. It differs only by a single letter from that of the Received Text; but it converts the indicative into the subjunctive mood, or the declaratory form of the statement - "we have peace" - into the hortatory form, "let us have peace." [In favour of echomen (G2192), of the Received Text, we have only B** (about eighth century) FG, and several cursives, the Peshito Syriac, and one or two Greek fathers; but for echoomen (G2192) we have 'Aleph (') A B*C D K L, and about 30 cursives; 4 copies of the Old Latin and the Vulgate ("habeamus"); the Memphitic, the Philox. Syriac, and the AEthiopic; Chrysostom, Augustine, and other Greek and Latin fathers].
Should we be obliged to regard this very strong evidence as decisive (as do Scholz, Fritzsche, Tregelles, and Green), it would still bring out the same sense as the Received Text, though not so directly. For since, if required to have peace with God, we must be entitled to have it, the hortatory form of the statement-`Let us have peace with God'-amounts just to this, that as peace with God is the native consequence of a justified state, believers should realize it, or have the joyful consciousness of it as their own. Nor let it be said (as Olshausen, Alford, and Philippi, do) that it is incongruous to bid us have what it is God's prerogative to bestow; for we are elsewhere exhorted to "have grace" (Hebrews 12:28), which surely is not less the pure gift of God than the peace which flows from justification. But though the sense, according to both readings, is substantially the same, there are three internal evidences in favour of the Received Text-or the indicative form of the statement ("we have peace") - to which, on mature reflection, we feel constrained to yield.
(1) The sense is beyond question indicative or declaratory throughout all this section, specifying as matter of fact the various privileges of the justified believer; and if so, it certainly is more natural that the first one should be put in the indicative mood, "we have peace," than subjunctively-`let us have peace'-while all the others are specified as matter of fact in the indicative form.
(2) The testimony of the fathers in favour of the subjunctive form is of very little weight, and is fitted rather to create a suspicion against it, from their known tendency to give an ethical and hortatory form to simple doctrinal statements. Chrysostom, for example, though one of the most accurate of the Greek expositors, entirely misses the sense of this verse, not only throwing it into the hortatory form, but regarding it as an exhortation to cease from sinning. His words are, 'Let us have peace with God-that is, let us no longer sin' х toutesti (G5123) meeketi (G3371) hamartanomen (G264)]; and Origen, Theodoret, and other Greek fathers go equally far astray in interpreting this verse. But above all
(3) The interchange of the long "o" and the short "o" - which is the whole difference between the two readings in the present case, and is technically called itacism-is so common in ancient Greek manuscripts that the question whether more of them have the one form than the other ought not of itself to decide the question in which form the word came from the apostle himself. And as this is the one ground on which the subjunctive reading has any claim to be received, it ought to give way before the very strong internal evidence in favour of the indicative or declaratory form of the statement, (Accordingly, Lachmann and Tischendorf abide by the Received Text, of which DeWette, Meyer, Philippi, and Alford approve.)
The next thing is to fix the precise sense of the words, "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" х pros (G4314) ton (G3588) Theon (G2316) - the preposition denoting 'ethical relation' (Donaldson, 486), as in Acts 2:47; Acts 24:16]. Calvin and others take this peace to mean 'peace of conscience,' or that tranquility of soul which springs from a sense of our reconciliation to God. But this is rather a consequence of the peace here meant than the peace itself. "Peace with God" here is clearly God's being at peace with us, or the cessation of His wrath, the removal of His righteous displeasure against us because of sin now put away "through our Lord Jesus Christ" (so Melville, Alford, Philippi, Hodge). It is true that the knowledge that God is now at peace with us cannot but quell all guilty fears and tranquillize the conscience; but the great truth here expressed is that the justified believer is no longer the object of God's displeasure. The knowledge of this blessed truth must ever be beyond the reach of those who rest their hopes of acceptance, whether more or less, on their own imperfect conformity to the laws of God.