The weighty theme of justification has been now fully treated, on the side both of Christ's blood shed in expiation and of His resurrection as carried through death in the power of God; that is to say, both negatively and positively, bearing all the consequences of our sins and manifesting the new estate in which He stands before God.
In the former half of our chapter the apostle draws out the consequences of justification. From verse 12 he enters on a new part of his subject which runs down to the end of chapter 8 and is practically an appendix to what goes before.
“Having therefore been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have also had access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God.”
Peace with God we have as the first notable result of justification. Our previous state was enmity and war with God. But now that He has justified us by faith of Christ, we can look back at all the past, so humiliating to our souls, and yet we have peace with God.
It is a mistake to confound this with the ordinary apostolic salutation, which desires grace to the saints. and, “peace from God.” These we need continually, and feel so much the more to be needed because we have peace with God. Again, “the peace of God,” of which the apostle speaks in Phil. 4 is quite distinct; for it too is the want of the Christian in his daily circumstances. While he is enjoying peace with God as to his state, spite of the deep sense he may have of past guilt, he may not have the peace of God guarding his heart and his thoughts by Christ Jesus. He may be tried greatly and distracted, because anxious about this or that; if in one thing and another he fail by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving to make known his requests to God, he will assuredly fail to enjoy the guardian power of His peace. This therefore differs indisputably from that primary blessedness, the fruit of justification, which the apostle treats as the common portion of believers in his Epistle to the Romans.
The next effect it is as important as it is sweet to take into account. Through our Lord Jesus Christ we have also, as a permanent blessing given already to us, the title of access into this favor wherein we stand. If the former was in view of all we had done in past hostility to God, this contemplates our actual place and the feeling which reigns where we stand. Blessed be God it is grace that reigns there. Not a breath is there, save of favor toward us who deserved, alas! to be cast out and contemned for our unworthy ways even since we have been brought to God. We do not stand under law: this were to fall from grace, the sure precursor of falling into sin, as well as the denial of the Savior and of His precious redemption, and of our own blessing. The access we have had through our Lord Jesus Christ is into the grace, the true grace of God, and there alone we stand; anywhere else we must fall from everything good and into all evil.
But there is a third result which must not be passed by. The greater the boon, whether you look at the past with its dark sin or at the present with the settled sunshine of God's favor, so much the less can one bear to think of such blessedness coming to naught; and to naught it must all come, did the rich effects of justification depend on ourselves. But they do not. They come to us faith-wise, and they rest on Christ through whom alone they are our portion. They are not temporal like Adam's tenure of Eden, or Israel's possession of Canaan. They are secured through Him who died for our sins and is raised out of the dead. Can he lose the blessings He has thus won? No more can we for whom He won them. Hence we can exultingly look on the future. Not more certainly do we stand in present grace than “boast in hope of the glory of God.” Less than this does not suit our God to hold out before us. He will have us to be with and as Christ in His own glory. He deals with us who believe as to past, present, and future, according to what our Lord Jesus deserves and His eternal redemption. If the righteousness be God's righteousness, not man's, if divine righteousness be the starting-point, no wonder that the grace of God is the ground in which we stand, and that the glory of God is the sole adequate hope, whether we consider the person or the work of the Savior. May we boast of it and Him!