“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: 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 when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For 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. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 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. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.”— Romans 5:1-111Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; 4And patience, experience; and experience, hope: 5And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. 6For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10For 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. 11And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. (Romans 5:1‑11).
FOUR effects of the gospel are presented in this scripture: first, the believer is justified before God—there never can be a charge laid against him; secondly, he has peace with God—his heart is perfectly at rest in the knowledge of God, and in the knowledge that every question that God could raise has been settled to God’s own glory; then, the man that believes the gospel is reconciled to God by the death of His Son; and lastly, “we also joy, in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Now I think, my reader, that this fourfold fruit of faith in the Lord Jesus puts a charming aspect upon the gospel. If you have been afraid of it, you need not be—it will justify you, you will have peace with God, be reconciled to Him, and the next thing is instead of seeking for something to fill your heart with joy you will have reached the abiding spring of everlasting joy. If you bring the thought of God into man’s world, it upsets; if you spoke of Him in a ball-room you would be told that was not the place to speak of such a subject. Why? Because man does not know God. But the apostle ends his statement here with this, “We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He is the spring and source of abiding joy in our hearts—we know Him. I know I am loved of God.
The apostle introduces here, for the first time in this epistle, the native source of the gospel and its joys—God’s love. You and I thought He was righteous and vengeful, and make no mistake about it, He is not going to pass over sin. Sin and God never meet except for judgment. Well then, says a guilty sinner, what am I to do? You know what Augustine said— “Wouldst thou flee from God—flee to Him.” That is to say, if you want to get away from the righteous judgment which you know the holy hand of God must minister to you because you are a sinner, you must flee to His arms, and you will find that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but hive everlasting life.”
It is a wonderful thing for the apostle to say here, “We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation.” We have the reconciliation. God did not need reconciliation, for He was never opposed to man. Reconciliation is that two who have been sundered by hard thoughts, separated because of something coming in to estrange them, are brought together in the bonds of love. Who needed reconciliation? Man. God did not—He was never unreconciled. It is the sinner that needs reconciliation, it is the heart that has got estranged from God that needs reconciliation.
But what is it that effects this? The apostle says, “When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.” Reconciliation is effected by Christ’s death in which is seen the complete and absolute removal of that which was between us and God. Sin has produced distance, and the sense of want of confidence on our side. What was on God’s side? Love. What was on our side? Distrust.
Now, my unsaved friend, it is quite true that you are a sinner, but I rejoice to tell you that God is not looking for you to bring anything to Him, because He has found all He wants in the Man Christ Jesus. He has found all that He looks for in man—in Him. Hence the importance of looking away from yourself to Christ, clinging to Christ, and appropriating Christ. There is not a word about you and me in the gospel, it is all about Christ. You say, I thought it was for me. Yes, but not about you, it is all about Jesus—what He is to God, and what He was, as revealing God to this world— “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.”
Did Christ come down here saying, You are a sinner? No. We read in John 3 of Nicodemus coming to Him in the darkness of night, and He said to him, in effect, God is love. He might and did tell him that he needed new birth, reconstruction (for man cannot be reformed, though the world is full of newfangled reformation societies), but His tale was that God loved the world. Now, notice that the gospel comes to a man that is past improvement, and what cannot be mended must be ended. There is an end before you that is awful unless you find out what is the end of man in the cross of Christ. Peter says, “If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?” And “What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” There is no end, and yet there is an awful end—endless blackness, darkness, misery—that is the end of the man that has not obeyed the gospel.
God has come out in the person of Christ, who has done a work whereby you and I can be absolutely blessed. No one could reveal God but His own Son, and now something new is made known—the gospel is made known to all nations for the obedience of faith, that is, that you and I should believe that God is as good as He says He is. He is as holy and righteous as Scripture says He is, and sin is a great deal more terrible to God than to you and me. In the gospel, as proclaimed by Jesus, I hear God speaking, and telling me what He is. He is not telling me what I ought to be. Moses could bring me the claims of God, tell me what I ought to be, and show me also that I was bound to be condemned because I was not what I ought to be. The Eternal Son of the Father has stepped into this world to tell me what the love of God is, and He has accomplished a work whereby God is able to save the vilest sinner.
The man that gets hold of that truth will receive the reconciliation upon this ground, that God has received the atonement. The question of sin must be taken up according to the infinite holiness of God, and, thank God, it has been settled by the only One who could settle it. My hope is in the One who is exactly what God would have Him to be, and who, being what He was, could and did meet all the claims of God in His pathway and life down here, and then, in His death, could offer Himself without spot to God, and make atonement for the sin of others. God has deep interest in you and me, for “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Perhaps you have thought that it was the good world that God loved. There is no such world. The world is the scene that is made up of people like you and me, that have lived without the knowledge of God, and done their own will; and when we learn that God loved us, and gave His Son even to death for our sins, that touches our hearts, and we are reconciled to God by the death of His Son.
If you have never yet been brought to know the blessedness of the gospel, just listen to the Word of God. Peace with God is a wonderful thing—so also is “no condemnation,” no possibility of a charge being laid against you, for it is God that justifies. The gospel is for the lost—it is for anybody and everybody. Will anybody that believes the gospel ever be condemned? Impossible! It is God that justifies. God will either justify or judge you. When will He justify you? Now. When will He judge you? When, at the second resurrection, you come out of your grave in your sins, for the man who dies in his sins will rise in his sins, and go into eternity in his sins, and that is what makes the present moment of vital importance. Be in time!
Who will condemn in that day? “It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” What a wonderful thing! Who will justify me? God. Who will plead my case? Christ. This is too simple for many—they think they must be something, do something, bring something, or offer something, and they do not get peace through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Peace with God is the first effect of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ— “By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
The believer in the Lord Jesus Christ stands in all the favor of God. The horizon of the Christian is divided into three segments—past, present, and future. As regards the past, there is peace about every question. Christ has made it, I have got it.
What is the canopy over my head? Grace—the very favor in which Jesus stands. Is not Christ in favor? So am I, because I am in Christ, stand in favor, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. I can express the horizon of my soul in three words, peace, grace, and glory. Happy man! Of course I am—why aren’t you? I have peace with regard to all the past, am in the favor of God just now, and am going right into the glory of God.
In the meantime you will meet with tribulation—that will do you no harm. It will wake you up, and brighten you up, and it works patience, and patience works experience, and experience hope. The journey may be shorter or longer, but the end is the glory of God. I am on the road to be with the Lord, I have the support of the Lord on the way, and I am experiencing His grace and goodness, and “hope maketh not ashamed.” The hope that has God for it support, and Christ for its object, can never be pill to shame. We “wait for the hope of righteousness,” which is glory, everlasting rest and blessing with the precious Son of God.
“Hope maketh not ashamed.” Christian, the world may laugh at you now, but it will not laugh long. The world’s laughing days are very short—the Christian’s laughing days will be very long. “As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool.” But if you joy in God will that spring ever dry up, will that river of pleasure ever be exhausted? Never. “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” You may say, But I do not feel that I love God. This verse does not speak of our love to God—that is very feeble—it is the love of God to us. I believe Christ died for me, and met all the claims of God. He is now in heaven a glory-crowned man, and the Holy Ghost has come to tell us that He is there, and thus “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
The Holy Ghost sheds abroad in our hearts the wonderful truth, that we are the objects of God’s love. What a miss is yours if you do not know it. You say, I think I am a Christian. No one is a true Christian unless he has the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost sheds abroad the love of God in the heart. You may not buy it, do not earn it, could not deserve it, and cannot win it. Who gets it? The man that believes in Jesus.
Look at the description in Romans 5 of what was the state of the man in whose heart the Holy Ghost is now shedding abroad God’s love. Look at the fourfold description of us when in nature’s darkness. It is like a lamp with four sides— “without strength,” “sinners,” “ungodly,” “enemies.” Now we all like to have a little strength—and the cry is, I am so weak. Thus sinners struggle, strive, and try to be better, until they discover they are without strength. Do you know what a creature without strength has to do? Let someone else do for him. I think people do not get the gospel because they have too much strength. Give up all your efforts and be what you are, a downright hell-bound sinner in your sins, and let Christ grip you and save you.
What lovely tidings are these— “In due time Christ died for the ungodly.” What was the due time? When God had tried and tested man for four thousand years, and found him utterly helpless and a law-breaker to boot. When man was hopelessly lost, then into this world came the Son of God, and died for the ungodly. Not for the godly but the ungodly. The gospel turns a sinner into a saint, by the discovery that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. There is a warmth, a gush, a divine heat about the love of God that is exquisite. He loves a man that is a sinner, and when he learns he is loved of God, he says, “I should like to please the One that loves me.”
How blessed is it to know that “we shall be saved from wrath through him,” i.e., Jesus. What is the coming wrath? Wrath you will never exhaust; you will never rise out of. It is the wrath of God, and if you are not saved, God grant you may not sleep on your bed tonight until you are. The wrath of God you will never exhaust if you come under it. The language of Scripture is awfully solemn: regarding it do not let the devil deceive you, and let no half-hearted Christian deceive you by telling you that when you die there is the end of you. The apostle says, “We shall be saved from wrath through him,” “being now justified by his blood.” That blood has met all the claims of God, and has forever quenched the flames of the lake of fire for the believer. Either the Saviour’s blood quenches that flame for you, or you will have to taste and endure it—which shall it be? Where will you spend eternity—in the glory, or in the everlasting misery that you have bought with your sin, and made certain by the awful unbelief that despises Christ?
Christian, ring this out through the world— “We shall be saved from wrath through him.” Such is God’s love to us. We are sinners saved by grace. We were once strengthless and ungodly, but now are saved by Him. What a Saviour is Jesus! Who would not trust Him and seek to serve Him?
W. T. P. W.