“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord, Jesus Christ.”
“Peace with God!” All that was against us cleared away. Christ is risen, the work completed, and God has accepted it. There our souls rest. All has been answered by the Lord. We know it by faith, and not a spot, not a cloud to darken our sky.
“By Him also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand.” His favor shines down upon us, and we enter into it by faith. We shall find this more fully opened up to us as we go on in this epistle, but we can look up to God and find His favor, which is better than life, beaming down upon us. In that love our souls can rest.
“So dear, so very dear to God,
More dear I cannot be
The love wherewith He loves the Son,
Such is His love to, me.”
We can rejoice also in hope of the glory of God. We had all come short of that glory, but now all is changed. Such is the worth of the sacrifice of Christ, our place in the glory of God is secured and prepared. He is our hope, and He is there, and He will have us there, and this hope brightens our path through this murky world. The light of heaven cheers us on.
The past all cleared away; the present secured in grace; the future—the joy of being like and with Him who gave Himself for us. This makes us think of the Giver of all this wonderful good, and He is for us.
He is our Teacher, but we start our journey well furnished. We have much to learn—much to meet in and about ourselves that needs correcting, subduing, and which hinders our enjoyment, and dims our hope, but the tribulations work endurance, and experience; and hope brightens up and makes not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us, and dwells in us. This leads us to fuller knowledge of ourselves, and more separation of heart from the things around us, and clearer views of what God is for us on the way, His patient goodness all along the road, pictured in Israel of old, when He humbled, and proved to themselves what they were, and what He was for them, though they were ever unworthy, but here it is God’s goodness, and not man’s failure that is dwelt upon. It is His dealings with us in order to deepen our spiritual enjoyment, and to wean us from the world, and more to Himself in our spirits.
We are reminded in Verse 6, that we were ungodly, and without strength when Christ died for us. Some would scarcely die for a just man; for a good man, some would even dare to die, but “God commendeth His love to 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.” The proof of His love is what He has done for us as sinners. The perfectness and purity of His love was told when we were guilty rebels, ungodly and without strength. The divine nature is seen here in its perfection as Light and Love, reaching down to us.
“Thou the Light that showed our sin,
Showed how guilty we had been;
Thine the Love that us to save,
Thine own Son for sinners gave.”
There was no reason in us that He should so love us. It was His love—peculiar to Himself. He saw our need, and His grace brought to us the blessing He alone could supply. The Holy Spirit reasons from what He is, not from what we are. We deserved nothing but condemnation, yet salvation and blessing are made ours through grace and through righteousness. Then the top stone is reached when the Holy Spirit, through the Apostle adds, “And not only so.” We can make our boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation (See the margin). God receives the atonement; we receive the reconciliation. We find our joy in God himself.
This closes the first division of this epistle. We rejoice, not only in the blessing received, but in the Blesser Himself. Our terror is gone, God is our Father, we are His children; Christ Jesus is our Lord; the Holy Spirit is given to us, and He dwells in us, shedding abroad the love of God in our hearts. We joy in God now.