PEACE with God! with God? Yes! ― a creature, guilty and condemned by his misdeeds, deserving of nothing but banishment from the Divine presence for all eternity, brought by grace to be at peace with God! A convicted criminal at peace with his judge, and with the law of the land he had broken, does but give a faint idea of a man, once guilty before God, being at peace with God. Yet such is the blessed fact, and such is the gracious privilege for every single soul who believes God.
Every true Christian believes, and knows, and feels he was once guilty before God. Possibly a man’s natural conscience may tell him he is guilty, for, as he reviews his past life, his misdeeds, his sins, rise up before him, and he can but own to the challenge, “Guilty, or not guilty?” — guilty. But a man’s conscience does not, and never will, show him what peace with God is. This the word of God alone reveals. The Christian believes God’s word, and hence he knows that by his acts, and words, and thoughts he, as a sinner, is guilty; but he knows, too, because God has said it, that he is justified by God, and therefore he has peace with God. Let conscience array before him all his sins, let memory recall the years that are past, but neither his sins nor his past life fills his soul with terror, for God has justified him, and peace with his Justifier rejoices his soul.
As we approach the great reality of peace with God, the Spirit levels down man’s pride, and thus conducts us to the gracious truth. So soon as God is declared to man as the Justifier, man must needs once and forever hide his face in the dust as far as his works go. “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5, 65I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. 6Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. (Job 42:5‑6).) Indeed, since “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,” there remains no hope nor expectation for any, save in God who justifies “freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
He that works to obtain God’s favor, spurns God’s pardoning grace; he who labors to please God in his own strength, knows not the blessedness of God’s forgiveness. Man’s work to obtain Divine favor, and God’s grace to man in his sins, are principles or laws so absolutely distinct that they could not approach each other for an eternity. The law of works and the law of faith are diverse principles, and as fire ascends, and water descends, there is no affinity between them. He who is seeking heaven by the law of works is on the road to a supposed eternity of self-glory. He who seeks it by the law of faith is on the way to sing forever: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain!”
The following texts bring clearly forward the two principles and their results: —
“By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His (God’s) sight.” (Rom. 3:20.)
“By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His (God’s) sight.” (Rom. 3:20.)
“To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.” (Rom. 4:4.)
“If by grace it is no more works.” (Rom. 11:6.)
“A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.’ (Rom. 3:28.)
Boasting is excluded by the law of faith. (See Rom. 3:27.)
“To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” (Rom. 4:5.)
“Otherwise grace is no more grace.” (Rom. 11:6.)
Now every religious person in Christendom is on one side or the other of the line drawn above — on the “law of faith” or “law of works” side.
The law of faith side has —
Justification by God. (Rom. 3:26.)
God counting a man righteous. (Rom. 4:3, 5.)
The blessedness of forgiveness. (Rom. 4:6, 7, 8.)
“Peace with God.” (Rom. 5:1)
The law of works side has—
We have left a blank on the other side, and let such as have heart for it fill up the blank for themselves. The Christian rejoices to count out his treasures, and many more blessed things might be added to the four given above, but we confine ourselves to blessings which circle around our justification. The moment we believe, these blessings are ours, though we doubt not some of God’s people do wait for peace with God, under the impression that a peculiar feeling is to be experienced before its reception. Let us, therefore, emphasize WITH God. We are not speaking of the peace OF God keeping our hearts, but our peace with God. Since our God has justified us who believe in Jesus (ch. 3:26), since He has counted righteousness to us also (4:23, 24), and since He has forgiven us our sins (4:8), since all this blessedness is ours, and ours solely by grace, and because of the redemption there is in Christ Jesus, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Spirit of God teaches that there may be a zeal of God and yet that those actuated by it may be unsaved. “I bear them record,” says St. Paul of Israel, “that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” (Rom. 10:2, 32For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. 3For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. (Romans 10:2‑3).) There may be a religious fire and a life spent in religious works, yet all the while Christ may be omitted from the energy. Like a man racing at his utmost speed on a wrong road, men who are seeking to merit heaven by their works are hastening daily further and further from that place whither they think they are going. “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Every one that believes is brought up to a standstill by the cross of Christ; he sees Jesus dying for him, bearing the penalty for him, enduring the judgment of God for him, and thenceforth every effort to make himself fit for God’s presence vanishes from his soul, and he hails Jesus as his Saviour.
Let us inquire what God seeks, from the sinner who comes to Him for salvation. We may sum this up by these words: “Every mouth stopped — guilty before God:” that is, God requires of man a solemn admission to the fact of his guilt, and submission to His righteousness. Only let the sinner own his guilt, his helplessness, his true state, and he is not far from the door of mercy. “The darkest hour is that just before the dawn,” we may well say as we read Rom. 3:2020Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:20), and how bright is the light that shines in verses 21-26 — God’s righteousness manifested, free justification, redemption in Christ Jesus, a mercy-seat through faith in His blood set forth for sinners by God Himself, and God’s own righteousness in justifying an ungodly soul who believes on Jesus, declared. What light from heaven shines here! what a day-dawn in the soul it is when God is believed! What a flood of His bright mercy and grace to poor guilty sinners illumines the soul whose heart opens to the gospel of God I The gospel— if it can be called good news — of doing, doing, doing, has not one ray of heaven’s light in it; but the good news of God to guilty man blazes with His grace, and streams down into the soul, and hence we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.