Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope: and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
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Romans 5:1-5 sits inside this longer paragraph.
Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope: and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a righteous person someone would even dare to die. But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Parallel Translations
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Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;
through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance;
and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope:
and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
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Because therfore that we are iustified by fayth we are at peace with god thorow oure Lorde Iesue Christ:
by who we have awaye in thorow fayth vnto this grace wherin we stonde and reioyce in hope of the prayse that shalbe geven of God.
Nether do we so only: but also we reioyce in tribulacion. For we know that tribulacion bringeth pacience
pacience bringeth experience experience bringeth hope.
And hope maketh not ashamed for the love of God is sheed abrod in oure hertes by the holy goost which is geven vnto vs.
Show all 3 translations
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Then being iustified by faith, we haue peace toward God through our Lord Iesus Christ.
By who also through faith, we haue had this accesse into this grace, wherein we stand, and reioyce vnder ye hope of the glory of God.
Neither that onely, but also we reioyce in tribulations, knowing that tribulation bringeth forth patience,
And patience experience, and experience hope,
And hope maketh not ashamed, because the loue of God is shed abroade in our heartes by the holy Ghost, which is giuen vnto vs.
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Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (152)
- James 1:2-3 (v3) Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
- Isaiah 32:17 (v1) The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever.
- James 1:12 (vv3–4) Blessed is a person who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to…
- Galatians 4:6 (v5) And because you are children, God sent out the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”
- 1 Peter 3:14 (v3) But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. “Don’t fear what they fear, neither be troubled.”
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- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (v3) He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in…
- John 16:33 (v1) I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble; but cheer up! I have overcome the world.”
- Romans 15:13 (vv1–2) Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
- 2 Corinthians 4:17 (vv2–3) For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory,
- Ephesians 2:18 (v2) For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.
- Ephesians 3:16-19 (v5) that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner…
- Philippians 1:20 (v5) according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will in no way be disappointed, but with all boldness, as always, now also Christ will…
- Colossians 1:20 (v1) and through him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens, having made peace through…
- Acts 13:38-39 (v1) Be it known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man is proclaimed to you remission of sins, and by him everyone who believes is…
- Ephesians 3:12 (v2) In him we have boldness and access in confidence through our faith in him.
- 2 Timothy 1:12 (v5) For this cause I also suffer these things. Yet I am not ashamed, for I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to…
- 2 Corinthians 1:22 (v5) who also sealed us, and gave us the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts.
- Romans 6:23 (v1) For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
- 1 Peter 5:10 (v4) But may the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, perfect,…
- Isaiah 44:3-5 (v5) For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and streams on the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on…
- Luke 6:22-23 (v3) Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude and mock you, and throw out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. Rejoice…
- John 14:27 (v1) Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, I give to you. Don’t let your heart be troubled, neither let it be…
- Ephesians 2:14-17 (v1) For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the hostility, the law…
- 1 John 4:19 (v5) We love him, because he first loved us.
- Acts 2:33 (v5) Being therefore exalted by the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out…
- Romans 14:17 (v1) for God’s Kingdom is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
- Ephesians 1:13 (v5) In him you also, having heard the word of the truth, the Good News of your salvation—in whom, having also believed, you were sealed with…
- Colossians 3:15 (v1) And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful.
- 2 Thessalonians 3:16 (v1) Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways. The Lord be with you all.
- Romans 4:5 (v1) But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.
- Romans 12:12 (v2) rejoicing in hope; enduring in troubles; continuing steadfastly in prayer;
- Hebrews 8:10-12 (v5) “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days,” says the Lord; “I will put my laws into their mind,…
- 2 Thessalonians 2:16 (vv2, 5) Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace,
- Isaiah 54:13 (v1) All your children will be taught by Yahweh; and your children’s peace will be great.
- Romans 8:14-17 (v5) For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God. For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you…
- Romans 15:33 (v1) Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.
- 1 Corinthians 15:1 (v2) Now I declare to you, brothers, the Good News which I preached to you, which also you received, in which you also stand,
- Galatians 5:22 (v5) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,
- Ephesians 4:30 (v5) Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
- Titus 3:5-6 (v5) not by works of righteousness which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and…
- Job 27:8 (v5) For what is the hope of the godless, when he is cut off, when God takes away his life?
- Acts 2:17 (v5) ‘It will be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your young…
- Romans 8:35-37 (v3) Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…
- 2 Corinthians 4:6 (v5) seeing it is God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory…
- 2 Corinthians 4:8-12 (v4) We are pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, yet not to despair; pursued, yet not forsaken; struck down, yet not destroyed;…
- 1 Peter 3:18 (v2) Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God, being put to death in the…
- Psalms 119:116 (v5) Uphold me according to your word, that I may live. Let me not be ashamed of my hope.
- Acts 10:36 (v1) The word which he sent to the children of Israel, preaching good news of peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all—
- 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 (v1) But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation; namely, that…
- Philippians 3:9 (v1) and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the…
- Romans 5:9-10 (vv1–2) Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God’s wrath through him. For if while we were enemies, we were…
- 2 Corinthians 3:18 (vv2, 5) But we all, with unveiled face seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even…
- Luke 21:19 (v3) “By your endurance you will win your lives.
- Hebrews 12:10-11 (v3) For they indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. All…
- Psalms 71:18-24 (v4) Yes, even when I am old and gray-haired, God, don’t forsake me, until I have declared your strength to the next generation, your might to…
- Psalms 85:8-10 (v1) I will hear what God, Yahweh, will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, his saints; but let them not turn again to folly. Surely…
- Isaiah 27:5 (v1) Or else let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me. Let him make peace with me.”
- Luke 19:38 (v1) saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest!”
- Luke 19:42 (v1) saying, “If you, even you, had known today the things which belong to your peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes.
- Romans 5:18 (v1) So then as through one trespass, all men were condemned; even so through one act of righteousness, all men were justified to life.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:23 (v1) May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our…
- 2 Timothy 4:16-18 (v4) At my first defense, no one came to help me, but all left me. May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood by me and strengthened…
- Hebrews 3:6 (v2) but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house. We are his house, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the…
- 1 Peter 1:6-7 (v4) Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved in various trials, that the proof of your…
- Matthew 22:36-37 (v5) “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with…
- John 10:9 (v2) I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out, and will find pasture.
- Romans 1:7 (v1) to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
- Hebrews 6:18-19 (v5) that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have a strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to…
- James 2:23-26 (v1) So the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness,” and he was called the…
- John 5:24 (vv1–2) “Most certainly I tell you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and doesn’t come into judgment, but has…
- Psalms 22:4-5 (v5) Our fathers trusted in you. They trusted, and you delivered them. They cried to you, and were delivered. They trusted in you, and were not…
- Isaiah 28:15-18 (v5) “Because you have said, ‘We have made a covenant with death, and we are in agreement with Sheol. When the overflowing scourge passes…
- Isaiah 45:16-17 (v5) They will be disappointed, yes, confounded, all of them. Those who are makers of idols will go into confusion together. Israel will be…
- Isaiah 55:12 (v1) For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace. The mountains and the hills will break out before you into singing; and all the…
- Jeremiah 17:5-8 (v5) Yahweh says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, relies on strength of flesh, and whose heart departs from Yahweh. For he will be like a…
- Ezekiel 36:25 (v5) I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness, and from all your idols.
- Luke 10:5-6 (v1) Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house.’ If a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it…
- Romans 8:28 (v5) We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.
- 1 Corinthians 8:3 (v5) But if anyone loves God, the same is known by him.
- Psalms 27:2-3 (v4) When evildoers came at me to eat up my flesh, even my adversaries and my foes, they stumbled and fell. Though an army should encamp against…
- Psalms 42:4-5 (v4) These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me, how I used to go with the crowd, and led them to God’s house, with the voice of…
- Matthew 5:10-12 (v3) Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. “Blessed are you when people…
- John 3:16-18 (v1) For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For…
- John 20:31 (v1) but these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.
- Romans 1:17 (v1) For in it is revealed God’s righteousness from faith to faith. As it is written, “But the righteous shall live by faith.”
- Romans 10:10 (v1) For with the heart, one believes resulting in righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made resulting in salvation.
- 2 Corinthians 1:4-6 (v4) who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we…
- 2 Corinthians 6:9-10 (v4) as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor,…
- Galatians 2:16 (v1) yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed in Christ Jesus, that…
- Philippians 2:17-18 (v3) Yes, and if I am poured out on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice with you all. In the same way, you also…
- Psalms 17:15 (v2) As for me, I shall see your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with seeing your form.
- Isaiah 49:23 (v5) Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth, and…
- Isaiah 57:19-21 (v1) I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace, to him who is far off and to him who is near,” says Yahweh; “and I will heal them.” But the…
- Habakkuk 2:4 (v1) Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright in him, but the righteous will live by his faith.
- Acts 5:41 (v3) They therefore departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for Jesus’ name.
- 2 Corinthians 11:23-30 (v3) Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself.) I am more so: in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in…
- Ephesians 3:13 (v3) Therefore I ask that you may not lose heart at my troubles for you, which are your glory.
- Hebrews 10:19-20 (v2) Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and…
- Joshua 10:24-25 (v4) When they brought those kings out to Joshua, Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said to the chiefs of the men of war who went…
- 1 Samuel 17:34-37 (v4) David said to Saul, “Your servant was keeping his father’s sheep; and when a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb out of the flock, I went…
100 distinct cross-references across this passage (152 total citations).
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Explain this passage (34 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–5 1. Being then justified, etc. The Apostle begins to…
1. Being then justified, etc. The Apostle begins to illustrate by the effects, what he has hitherto said of the righteousness of faith: and hence the whole of this chapter is taken up with amplifications, which are no less calculated to explain than to confirm. He had said before, that faith is abolished, if righteousness is sought by works; and in this case perpetual inquietude would disturb miserable souls, as they can find nothing substantial in themselves: but he teaches us now, that they are rendered quiet and tranquil, when we have obtained righteousness by faith, we have peace with God; and this is the peculiar fruit of the righteousness of faith. When any one strives to seek tranquillity of conscience by works, (which is the case with profane and ignorant men,) he labors for it in vain; for either his heart is asleep through his disregard or forgetfulness of God’s judgment, or else it is full of trembling and dread, until it reposes on Christ, who is alone our peace.
Then peace means tranquillity of conscience, which arises from this, — that it feels itself to be reconciled to God. This the Pharisee has not, who swells with false confidence in his own works; nor the stupid sinner, who is not disquieted, because he is inebriated with the sweetness of vices: for though neither of these seems to have a manifest disquietude, as he is who is smitten with a consciousness of sin; yet as they do not really approach the tribunal of God, they have no reconciliation with him; for insensibility of conscience is, as it were, a sort of retreating from God. Peace with God is opposed to the dead security of the flesh, and for this reason, — because the first thing is, that every one should become awakened as to the account he must render of his life; and no one can stand boldly before God, but he who relies on a gratuitous reconciliation; for as long as he is God, all must otherwise tremble and be confounded. And this is the strongest of proofs, that our opponents do nothing but prate to no purpose, when they ascribe righteousness to works; for this conclusion of Paul is derived from this fact, — that miserable souls always tremble, except they repose on the grace of Christ.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5 Another argument taken of the effects: we are justified…
Another argument taken of the effects: we are justified with that, which truly appeaseth our conscience before God but faith in Christ doth appease our conscience, and not the Law, as it was before said, therefore by faith we are justified, and not by the Law.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–5 1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace…
1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
Ver. 1. Being justified by faith] As he had said, Rom 4:24.
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We have peace with God] A blessed calm lodged in our consciences; like as when Jonah was cast overboard, there followed a tranquillity. This is that continual feast, a very heaven beforehand, an anticipation of glory, ουρανος προ ουρανου.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Hitherto of the cause and manner of our justification;…
Hitherto of the cause and manner of our justification; now follow the benefits and effects.
Being justified by faith; as he had before asserted and proved particularly, in Rom 3:28; 4:24.
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We have peace with God; i.e. we have reconciliation with God, who before were utter enemies to him, Col 1:21; he is now become our Friend, as he was Abraham’s.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only Mediator of reconciliation: see 2Co 5:19; Eph 2:14-16; Col 1:20; 1Ti 2:5.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv1–3 The first blessed effect and sweet fruit of our…
The first blessed effect and sweet fruit of our justification by faith, is peace and reconciliation with God. Pardon and peace go together, and accompany one another; a sinner being discharged from guilt, and thereby from his obnoxiousness to God’s wrath, is instantly brought into a state of friendship and reconciliation with God; for there is no middle state betwixt his favour and his wrath.
Learn hence, 1. That peace, is proclaimed in heaven betwixt God and every justified person whatsoever, the enmity betwixt God and such a soul being taken away: Peace I say, is proclaimed in the sinner’s conscience: A person may be in a state of peace, and yet want the sense of peace.
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Again, There is a twofold peace with God; one which is opposite to God’s paternal anger as a father. Now, the apostle here speaks of the former. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God; that is, God has no more hostile enmity against us, and will not satisfy his justice upon us, by punishing of us; but if we offend him, we shall certainly fall under his frowns and chastisements, and feel the effects of his heavy displeasure as an angry father!
With this agrees that of the learned and pious Bishop Davenant: Deus absolvit justificatum ab omni pana satisfactoria, sed non ab omni pana medicinali & castigatoria.
Learn, 2. That our reconciliation with God is settled upon a sure foundation by Jesus Christ; We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus; that is, through him as a Mediator betwixt God and us; he made peace by the blood of his cross, Col 1:20. that is, by his blood shed upon the cross; he meritorious satisfaction brought us into a state of peace and reconciliation, and his prevailing intercession keep us in it: Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 The precious benefits and privileges which flow from justification…
The precious benefits and privileges which flow from justification are such as should quicken us all to give diligence to make it sure to ourselves that we are justified, and then to take the comfort it renders to us, and to do the duty it calls for from us. The fruits of this tree of life are exceedingly precious.
I. We have peace with God, Rom 5:1. It is sin that breeds the quarrel between us and God, creates not only a strangeness, but an enmity; the holy righteous God cannot in honour be at peace with a sinner while he continues under the guilt of sin. Justification takes away the guilt, and so makes way for peace. And such are the benignity and good-will of God to man that, immediately upon the removing of that obstacle, the peace is made. By faith we lay hold of God's arm and of his strength, and so are at peace, Isa 27:4, Isa 27:5. There is more in this peace than barely a cessation of enmity, there is friendship and loving-kindness, for God is either the worst enemy or the best friend. Abraham, being justified by faith, was called the friend of God (Jam 2:23), which was his honour, but not his peculiar honour: Christ has called his disciples friends, Joh 15:13-15. And surely a man needs no more to make him happy than to have God his friend! But this is through our Lord Jesus Christ - through him as the great peace-maker, the Mediator between God and man, that blessed Day's-man that has laid his hand upon us both. Adam, in innocency, had peace with God immediately; there needed no such mediator. But to guilty sinful man it is a very dreadful thing to think of God out of Christ; for he is our peace, Eph 2:14, not only the maker, but the matter and maintainer, of our peace, Col 1:20.
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II. We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, Rom 5:2. This is a further privilege, not only peace, but grace, that is, this favour. Observe, 1. The saints' happy state. It is a state of grace, God's loving-kindness to us and our conformity to God; he that hath God's love and God's likeness is in a state of grace. Now into this grace we have access prosagōgēn - an introduction, which implies that we were not born in this state; we are by nature children of wrath, and the carnal mind is enmity against God; but we are brought into it. We could not have got into it of ourselves, nor have conquered the difficulties in the way, but we have a manuduction, a leading by the hand, - are led into it as blind, or lame, or weak people are led, - are introduced as pardoned offenders, - are introduced by some favourite at court to kiss the king's hand, as strangers, that are to have audience, are conducted. Prosagōgēn eschēkamen - We have had access. He speaks of those that have been already brought out of a state of nature into a state of grace. Paul, in his conversion, had this access; then he was made nigh. Barnabas introduced him to the apostles (Act 9:27), and there were others that led him by the hand to Damascus (Rom 5:8), but it was Christ that introduced and led him by the hand into this grace. By whom we have access by faith. By Christ as the author and principal agent, by faith as the means of this access. Not by Christ in consideration of any merit or desert of ours, but in consideration of our believing dependence upon him and resignation of ourselves to him. 2. Their happy standing in this state: wherein we stand. Not only wherein we are, but wherein we stand, a posture that denotes our discharge from guilt; we stand in the judgment (Psa 1:5), not cast, as convicted criminals, but our dignity and honour secured, not thrown to the ground, as abjects. The phrase denotes also our progress; while we stand, we are going. We must not lie down, as if we had already attained, but stand as those that are pressing forward, stand as servants attending on Christ our master. The phrase denotes, further, our perseverance: we stand firmly and safely, upheld by the power of God; stand as soldiers stand, that keep their ground, not borne down by the power of the enemy. It denotes not only our admission to, but our confirmation in, the favour of God. It is not in the court of heaven as in earthly courts, where high places are slippery places: but we stand in a humble confidence of this very thing that he who has begun the good work will perform it, Phi 1:6.
III. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Besides the happiness in hand, there is a happiness in hope, the glory of God, the glory which God will put upon the saints in heaven, glory which will consist in the vision and fruition of God. 1. Those, and those only, that have access by faith into the grace of God now may hope for the glory of God hereafter. There is no good hope of glory but what is founded in grace; grace is glory begun, the earnest and assurance of glory. He will give grace and glory, Psa 84:11. 2. Those who hope for the glory of God hereafter have enough to rejoice in now. It is the duty of those that hope for heaven to rejoice in that hope.
IV. We glory in tribulations also; not only notwithstanding our tribulations (these do not hinder our rejoicing in hope of the glory of God), but even in our tribulations, as they are working for us the weight of glory, Co2 4:17. Observe, What a growing increasing happiness the happiness of the saints is: Not only so. One would think such peace, such grace, such glory, and such a joy in hope of it, were more than such poor undeserving creatures as we are could pretend to; and yet it is not only so: there are more instances of our happiness - we glory in tribulations also, especially tribulations for righteousness' sake, which seemed the greatest objection against the saints' happiness, whereas really their happiness did not only consist with, but take rise fRom. those tribulations. They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer, Act 5:41. This being the hardest point, he sets himself to show the grounds and reasons of it. How come we to glory in tribulations? Why, because tribulations, by a chain of causes, greatly befriend hope, which he shows in the method of its influence. 1. Tribulation worketh patience, not in and of itself, but the powerful grace of God working in and with the tribulation. It proves, and by proving improves, patience, as parts and gifts increase by exercise. It is not the efficient cause, but yields the occasion, as steel is hardened by the fire. See how God brings meat out of the eater, and sweetness out of the strong. That which worketh patience is matter of joy; for patience does us more good than tribulations can do us hurt. Tribulation in itself worketh impatience; but, as it is sanctified to the saints, it worketh patience. 2. Patience experience, Rom 5:4. It works an experience of God, and the songs he gives in the night; the patient sufferers have the greatest experience of the divine consolations, which abound as afflictions abound. It works an experience of ourselves. It is by tribulation that we make an experiment of our own sincerity, and therefore such tribulations are called trials. It works, dokimēn - an approbation, as he is approved that has passed the test. Thus Job's tribulation wrought patience, and that patience produced an approbation, that still he holds fast his integrity, Job 2:3. 3. Experience hope. He who, being thus tried, comes forth as gold, will thereby be encouraged to hope. This experiment, or approbation, is not so much the ground, as the evidence, of our hope, and a special friend to it. Experience of God is a prop to our hope; he that hath delivered doth and will. Experience of ourselves helps to evidence our sincerity. 4. This hope maketh not ashamed; that is, it is a hope that will not deceive us. Nothing confounds more than disappointment. Everlasting shame and confusion will be caused by the perishing of the expectation of the wicked, but the hope of the righteous shall be gladness, Pro 10:28. See Psa 22:5; Psa 71:1. Or, It maketh not ashamed of our sufferings. Though we are counted as the offscouring of all things, and trodden under foot as the mire in the streets, yet, having hopes of glory, we are not ashamed of these sufferings. It is in a good cause, for a good Master, and in good hope; and therefore we are not ashamed. We will never think ourselves disparaged by sufferings that are likely to end so well. Because the love of God is shed abroad. This hope will not disappoint us, because it is sealed with the Holy Spirit as a Spirit of love. It is the gracious work of the blessed Spirit to shed abroad the love of God in the hearts of all the saints. The love of God, that is, the sense of God's love to us, drawing out love in us to him again. Or, The great effects of his love: (1.) Special grace; and, (2.) The pleasant gust or sense of it. It is shed abroad, as sweet ointment, perfuming the soul, as rain watering it and making it fruitful. The ground of all our comfort and holiness, and perseverance in both, is laid in the shedding abroad of the love of God in our hearts; it is this which constrains us, Co2 5:14. Thus are we drawn and held by the bonds of love. Sense of God's love to us will make us not ashamed, either of our hope in him or our sufferings for him.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Therefore being justified by faith,.... Not that faith is…
Therefore being justified by faith,.... Not that faith is at the first of our justification; for that is a sentence which passed in the mind of God from all eternity, and which passed on Christ, and on all the elect considered in him, when he rose from the dead; see Rom 4:25; nor is it the chief, or has it the chief place in justification; it is not the efficient cause of it, it is God that justifies, and not faith; it is not the moving cause of it, that is the free grace of God; it is not the matter of it, that is the righteousness of Christ: we are not justified by faith, either as God's work in us, for, as such, it is a part of sanctification; nor as our work or act, as exercised by us, for then we should be justified by works, by something of our own, and have whereof to glory; but we are justified by faith objectively and relatively, as that relates to the object Christ, and his righteousness; or as it is a means of our knowledge, and perception of our justification by Christ's righteousness, and of our enjoying the comfort of it; and so we come to
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle having set the doctrine of justification in a clear light, and fully proved that it is not by the works of men, but by the righteousness of God; and having mentioned the several causes of it, proceeds to consider its effects, among which, peace with God stands in the first place; and is so called, to distinguish it from peace with men, which persons, though justified by faith in Christ's righteousness, may not have; but are sure, having a sense of this, to find peace with God, even with him against whom they have sinned, whose law they have transgressed, and whose justice they have affronted; reconciliation for sin being made, and a justifying righteousness brought in, and this imputed and applied to them, they have that "peace of God", that tranquillity and serenity of mind, the same with "peace with God" here, "which passes all understanding", Phi 4:7; and is better experienced than expressed: and this is all through our Lord Jesus Christ; it springs from his atoning sacrifice, and precious blood, by which he has made peace; and is communicated through the imputation of his righteousness, and the application of his blood; and is only felt and enjoyed in a way of believing, by looking to him as the Lord our righteousness.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Being justified by faith - This is the sum…
Being justified by faith - This is the sum of the preceding chapters. We have peace with God - Being enemies to God no longer, ver. 10; neither fearing his wrath, ver. 9. We have peace, hope, love, and power over sin, the sum of the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters. These are the fruits of justifying faith: where these are not, that faith is not.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–5 The effects of justification by faith, peace with God,…
CHAPTER V.
The effects of justification by faith, peace with God, 1.
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The joyous hope of eternal glory, 2.
Glorying in tribulations, 3.
And gaining thereby patience, experience, and hope, 4.
And having the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy
Spirit, 5.
The state of the world when Christ died for it, 6-10.
Jesus Christ is an atonement, 11.
Sin and death entered into the world by Adam's transgression,
and all became guilty before God, 12-14.
God's grace in sending Christ into the world to save fallen man,
15-19.
The law is brought in to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin,
20.
The grace of Christ is to be as extensive in its influences and
reign, as sin has been in its enslaving and destructive nature,
21.
NOTES ON CHAP. V.
Is the former chapter, the apostle, having proved that the believing Gentiles are justified in the same way with Abraham, and are, in fact, his seed, included with him in the promise and covenant; he judged this a proper place, as the Jews built all their glorying upon the Abrahamic covenant, to produce some of the chief of those privileges and blessings in which the Christian Gentile can glory, in consequence of his justification by faith. And he produces three particulars which, above all others, were adapted to this purpose.
1. The hope of eternal life, in which the law, wherein the Jew gloried, Ro 2:17, was defective, Ro 5:2.
2. The persecutions and sufferings to which Christians were exposed, Ro 5:3; Ro 5:4, and on account of which the Jews were greatly prejudiced against the Christian profession: but he shows that these had a happy tendency to establish the heart in the hope of the Gospel.
3. An interest in God, as our GOD and FATHER-a privilege upon which the Jews valued themselves highly above all nations, Ro 5:11.
These three are the singular privileges belonging to the Gospel state, wherein true Christians may glory, as really belonging to them, and greatly redounding, if duly understood and improved, to their honour and benefit.
Verse 1. Therefore being justified by faith] The apostle takes it for granted that he has proved that justification is by faith, and that the Gentiles have an equal title with the Jews to salvation by faith. And now he proceeds to show the effects produced in the hearts of the believing Gentiles by this doctrine. We are justified-have all our sins pardoned by faith, as the instrumental cause; for, being sinners, we have no works of righteousness that we can plead.
We have peace with God] Before, while sinners, we were in a state of enmity with God, which was sufficiently proved by our rebellion against his authority, and our transgression of his laws; but now, being reconciled, we have peace with God. Before, while under a sense of the guilt of sin, we had nothing but terror and dismay in our own consciences; now, having our sin forgiven, we have peace in our hearts, feeling that all our guilt is taken away. Peace is generally the first-fruits of our justification.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ] His passion and death being the sole cause of our reconciliation to God.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5 Rom 5:1. Therefore being justified — In the way…
Rom 5:1. Therefore being justified — In the way shown in the preceding chapter, we receive many blessed privileges and advantages in consequence thereof. Here, to comfort the believers at Rome, and elsewhere, under the sufferings which the profession of the gospel brought upon them, the apostle proceeds to enumerate the privileges which belong to true believers in general. And from his account it appears, that the privileges of Abraham’s seed by faith, are far greater than those which belong to such as were his seed by natural descent, and which are described, Rom 2:17-20. The first privilege of this spiritual seed is, that, being justified by faith, we have peace with God — Being alienated from God and exposed to condemnation and wrath no longer, but brought into a state of reconciliation and peace with him. “Our guilty fears are silenced, and we are taught to look up to him with sweet serenity of soul, while we no longer conceive of him as an enemy, but under the endearing character of a Friend and a Father.” Through our Lord Jesus Christ — Through his mediation and grace. They have also divers other privileges and blessings here enumerated, which are all the fruits of justifying faith; so that where they are not, that faith is not. “It seems very unreasonable,” says Dr. Doddridge, “that when the apostle wrote such passages as this, and Eph 1:1-3, he should mean to exclude himself, who was no Gentile; they are not therefore to be expounded as spoken particularly of the Gentiles; nor could he surely intend by these grand descriptions, and pathetic representations, to speak only of such external privileges as might have been common to Simon Magus, or any other hypocritical and wicked professor of Christianity. And if he did not intend this, he must speak of all true Christians as such, and as taking it for granted that those to whom he addressed this and his other epistles were, in the general, such, though there might be some few excepted cases, which he did not think it necessary often to touch upon. And this is the true key to such passages in his epistles as I have more particularly stated and vindicated in the postscript which I have added to the preface of my Sermons on Regeneration, to which I must beg leave to refer my reader, and hope I shall be excused from a more particular examination of that very different scheme of interpretation which Dr. Taylor has so laboriously attempted to revive. The main principles of it are, I think, well confuted by my pious and worthy friend, Dr. Guyse, in the preface to his Paraphrase on this epistle.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Therefore - οὖν oun Since we are thus justified,…
Therefore - οὖν oun Since we are thus justified, or as a consequence of being justified, we have peace.
Being justified by faith - See the notes at Rom 1:17; Rom 3:24; Rom 4:5.
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We - That is, all who are justified. The apostle is evidently speaking of true Christians.
Have peace with God - see the note at Joh 14:27. True religion is often represented as peace with God; see Act 10:36; Rom 8:6; Rom 10:15; Rom 14:17; Gal 5:22; see also Isa 32:17.
“And the work of righteousness shall be peace,
And the effect of righteousness.
Quietness and assurance forever:”
This is called peace, because,
The sinner is represented as the enemy of God, Rom 8:7; Eph 2:16; Jam 4:4; Joh 15:18, Joh 15:24; Joh 17:14; Rom 1:30.
(2)The state of a sinner’s mind is far from peace. He is often agitated, alarmed, trembling. He feels that he is alienated from God. For,
“The wicked are like the troubled sea.
For it never can be at rest;
Whose waters cast up mire and dirt.”
Isa 57:20.
The sinner in this state regards God as his enemy. He trembles when he thinks of his Law; fears his judgments; is alarmed when he thinks of hell. His bosom is a stranger to peace. This has been felt in all lands, alike under the thunders of the Law of Sinai among the Jews; in the pagan world; and in lands where the gospel is preached. It is the effect of an alarmed and troubled conscience.
(3) The plan of salvation by Christ reveals God as willing to be reconciled. He is ready to pardon, and to be at peace. If the sinner repents and believes, God can now consistently forgive him, and admit him to favor. It is therefore a plan by which the mind of God and of the sinner can become reconciled, or united in feeling and in purpose. The obstacles on the part of God to reconciliation, arising from his justice and Law, have been removed, and he is now willing to be at peace. The obstacles on the part of man, arising from his sin, his rebellion, and his conscious guilt, may be taken away, and he can now regard God as his friend.
(4) The effect of this plan, when the sinner embraces it, is to produce peace in his own mind. He experiences peace; a peace which the world gives not, and which the world cannot take away, Phi 4:7; 1Pe 1:8; Joh 16:22. Usually in the work of conversion to God, this peace is the first evidence that is felt of the change of heart. Before, the sinner was agitated and troubled. But often suddenly, a peace and calmness is felt, which is before unknown. The alarm subsides; the heart is calm; the fears die away, like the waves of the ocean after a storm. A sweet tranquillity visits the heart - a pure shining light, like the sunbeams that break through the opening clouds after a tempest. The views, the feelings, the desires are changed; and the bosom that was just before filled with agitation and alarm, that regarded God as its enemy, is now at peace with him, and with all the world.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ - By means of the atonement of the Lord Jesus. It is his mediation that has procured it.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5 The apostle proceeds in this chapter to shew how…
The apostle proceeds in this chapter to shew how great a benefit it is to be truly justified by the coming of Christ. --- Let us have [1] peace with God. That is, says St. John Chrysostom, by laying aside all contentions. Or let us have peace with God by sinning no more. And this peace we may have under the greatest tribulations, which conduce to our greater good, to an increase in virtues, in patience, in hope, in the love of God, &c. (Witham)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Pacem habeamus. In the common Greek copies we read Greek: echomen, habemus. But in other manuscripts Greek: echomen, as St. John Chrysostom must have read by his commentary, Greek: meke[] amartano[]en. &c.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Romans Chapter 5
Romans Chapter 5
Thus, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Remark here also the difference of Abraham’s faith and ours. He believed God could perform what He promised. We are called to believe He has performed. Faith in God’s word, believing God, and this faith laying hold on His power in resurrection, is faith that this has lifted us out [19] of the whole effect of our sins. It reposes in God’s power as having wrought this deliverance for us, and justified us therein. Christ has been delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification. [20] The apostle had established the great principles. He comes now to the source and application of all (that is to say, their application to the condition of the soul in its own feelings). He sets before us the effect of these truths when received by faith through the power of the Holy Ghost. The work is done; the believer has part in it, and is justified. Having been justified, we have peace with God, we stand in divine favour, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We believe in a God who has intervened in power to raise Him from the dead who had borne our offences, and who, being raised, is the eternal witness that our sins are put away, and that the only true God is He who has done it in love. I have then peace with Him; all my sins are blotted out-annulled-by the work of Christ; my unburdened heart knows the Saviour God. I stand as a present thing in that grace or favour, God’s blessed present favour resting on me, which is better than life. Through Christ, entered into His presence, I am even now in the enjoyment of His favour, in present grace. All the fruits of the old man are cancelled before God by the death of Christ. There cannot be a question as to my sins between me and God. He has nothing to impute to me-that has been all settled in Christ’s death and resurrection. As to the present time, I am brought into His presence in the enjoyment of His favour. Grace characterises my present relationship with God. Further, all my sins having been put away according to the requirements of God’s glory, and Christ being risen from the dead, having met all that glory, I rejoice in the hope of the glory of God It is a full well-grounded hope of being in it, not a coming short of it. All is connected with God Himself, with, and according to, His perfections, the favour of God, and His glory for our hope. All is connected with His power in resurrection-peace with God already settled, the present favour of God, and the hope of glory.
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Remark here that justification is distinct from peace. “Having been justified, we have peace.” Justification is my true state before God, by virtue of the work of Christ, of His death, and of resurrection. Faith, thus knowing God, is at peace with God; but this is a result, like the present enjoyment of the grace wherein we stand. Faith believes in the God who has done this, and who-exercising His power in love and in righteousness-has raised from the dead the One who bore my sins, having entirely abolished them, and having perfectly glorified God in so doing. On this ground, too, “by Him” we have found access into the full favour of God in which we stand. And what is the result? It is glory; we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. It is God who is the root and the accomplisher of all. It is the gospel of God, the power of God in salvation, the righteousness of God, and it is into the glory of God that we are introduced in hope. Such is the efficacy of this grace with regard to us; it is peace, grace or favour, glory. One would say, This is all we can have: the past, present, and future are provided for.
Nevertheless there is more. First, practical experience. We pass in fact through tribulations; but we rejoice in this, because it exercises the heart, detaches us from the world, subdues the will, the natural working of the heart, purifies it from those things which dim our hope by filling it with present things, in order that we may refer more to God in all things, which, after all, are entirely directed by Him whose faithful grace ministered all this to us. We learn better that the scene in which we move passes away and changes, and is but a place of exercise, and not the proper sphere of life. Thus hope, founded on the work of Christ, becomes more clear, more disentangled from the mixture of that which is of man here below; we discern more clearly that which is unseen and eternal, and the links of the soul are more complete and entire with that which is on before us. Experience, which might have discouraged nature, works hope, because, come what may, we have the key to all, because the love of God who has given us this hope, made clearer by these exercises, is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us, who is the God of love dwelling in us.
Nevertheless, while giving this inward foundation of joy, the Spirit is careful to refer it to God, and to what He has done outside us, as regards the proof we have of it, in order that the soul may be built upon that which is in Him, and not on that which is in ourselves. This love is indeed in us; it sweetly explains all; but the love which is there through the presence of the Holy Ghost is the love of God, proved, namely, in that when we were destitute of all strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. The due time was when man had been demonstrated to be ungodly, and without strength to come out of this condition, although God, under the law, shewed him the way. Man can devote himself when he has an adequate motive; God has displayed the love that was peculiar [21] to Himself, in that, when there was no motive for Him in us, when we were nothing but sinners, Christ died for us! The source was in Himself, or rather was Himself. What a joy to know that it is in Him and of Him that we have all these things!
God, then, having reconciled us to Himself according to the prompting of His own heart, when we were enemies, will much more, now that we are justified, go on to the end; and we shall be saved from wrath through Christ. Accordingly he adds, speaking of the means, “If we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son,” by that which was, so to speak, His weakness, “much more shall we be saved by his life,” the mighty energy in which He lives eternally. Thus the love of God makes peace with regard to that which we were, and gives us security with regard to our future, making us happy withal in the present. And it is that which God is that secures to us all these blessings. He is love-full of consideration for us, full of wisdom.
But there is a second “not only,” after our state-peace, grace, and glory-what seemed complete and is complete salvation, had been established. “Not only” do we joy in tribulation, but we joy in God. We glory in Himself. This is the second part of the Christian’s blessed experience of the joy which results from our knowledge of God’s love in Christ, and our reconciliation by Him. The first was that he gloried in tribulation because of its effect, divine love being known The second is the love of God Himself in man. This known, we glory, not only in our salvation, and even in tribulation, but knowing such a Saviour God (a God who has raised up Jesus from the dead, and has saved us in His love), we glory in Him. Higher joy than this we cannot have.
This closes this section of the epistle, in which, through the propitiation made by Christ, the putting away of our sins, and the love of God Himself, has been fully made good and revealed: peace, grace possessed, and glory in hope; and that by the pure love of God Himself known in Christ’s dying for sinners. It is purely of God and thus divinely perfect. It was no matter of experience, whatever joy flowed from it, but God’s own acting from Himself, and so revealing Himself in what He is. Up to this, sins and personal guilt are treated of; now, sin and the state of the race. The pure favour of God towards us, beginning with us as sinners, is wonderfully brought out, going on to our rejoicing in Himself who has been, and is, such to us.
Having given the foundation and the source of salvation, and the confidence and enjoyment that flow from it, having based all on God, who had to do with those who were nothing but sinners devoid of all strength, and that by the death of Christ, the question of our sins was settled-that for which each man would have had to be judged according to what each had respectively done. Lawless, or under law, all were guilty; a propitiatory, or mercy-seat, was set forth in the precious blood of Christ, peace made for the guilty, and God revealed in love. But this has carried us up higher. We have to do with God, and man as he is as a present thing. It is a question of sinful man; the Jew had no privilege here, he had nothing to boast of. He could not say, sin came in by us and by the law. It is man, sin, and grace that are in question. The apostle takes up this fundamental and essential question-not sins and guilt to be judged of hereafter if not repented of, but the present state of man.
Man had nothing to boast of either. The God of grace is before our eyes, acting with regard to sin, when there was nothing else, save that law had aggravated the case by transgressions. Now sin came in by one man, and by sin death. This brings us to the condition of the race, not merely the acts of the individuals. That condition was exclusion from God, and an evil nature. All were alike in it, though surely each had added his own personal sins and guilt. Sin had come in by one, and death by sin. And thus death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. For sin was in the world before the law. Nor did the law add much to the advantage of man’s condition; it definitively imputed [22] his sin to him by giving him knowledge of it and forbidding it. Nevertheless, although there had been no imputation according to the government of God in virtue of an imposed and known rule, yet death reigned-a constant proof of sin (moreover, the history of Genesis made all this incontestable, even to the Jew)-over those who had not broken a covenant founded on a known commandment, as Adam [23] had done; and the Jews also, after the law was given. Men, between Adam and Moses, when there was no question of a law, as there was both before and after that interval, died just the same-sin reigned.
We must observe here that from the end of verse 12 to that of 17 (Rom 5:12-17) is a parenthesis: only the idea is developed, as in similar cases. In the parenthesis the apostle, after having presented Adam as the figure of Him who was to come-of Christ, argues that the character of the gift cannot be inferior to that of the evil. If the sin of the one first man was not confined in its effects to him who committed it, but extended to all those who as a race were connected with him, with much greater reason shall the grace which is by one, Christ Jesus, not end in Him, but embrace the many under Him also. And with regard to the thing, as well as to the person-and here the law is in view-one single offence brought in death, but grace remits a multitude of offences. Thus it could suffice for that which the law had made necessary. And, as to the effect, death has reigned; but by grace, not only shall life reign, but we shall reign in life by One according to the abundance of grace-by Jesus Christ.
InRomans 5:18 the general argument is resumed in a very abstract way. “By one offence,” he says, “towards all for condemnation, even so by one accomplished righteousness (or act of righteousness) towards all men, for justification of life.” One offence bore-in its bearing, so to speak, referred to all, and so it was with the one act of righteousness. This is the scope of the action in itself. Now for the application: for as by the disobedience of one man (only) many are constituted sinners, so by the obedience of one (only) many are constituted righteous It is still the thought that the act of the individual is not confined, as to its effects, within the limits of his own person. It affects many others, bringing them under the consequences of that act. It is said “all,” when the scope of the action [24] is spoken of; “the many,” when it is the definitive effect with regard to men; that is, the “many” who were in connection with him who accomplished the act.
This then was outside the law, though the law might aggravate the evil. It was a question of the effect of the acts of Adam and of Christ, and not of the conduct of individuals, to which evidently the law related. It is by one man’s disobedience the many (all men) were made sinners, not by their own sins. Of sins each has his own: here it is a state of sin common to all Of what use then was the law? It came in, as it were, exceptionally, and accessory to the chief fact, “that the offence [25] might abound.” But not only where the offence, but where sin abounded-for under the law and without the law it has abounded-grace has superabounded; in order that, as sin has reigned in death, grace should reign through righteousness in eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. If where sin reigns righteousness had reigned, it would have been to condemn the whole world. It is grace that reigns-the sovereign love of God. Righteousness is on a level with the evil, when it deals with evil, by the fact that it is righteousness; but God is above it, and acts, and can act-has a right to act-according to His own nature; and He is love. Is it that He sanctions unrighteousness and sin? No, in His love He brings about the accomplishment of divine righteousness by Jesus Christ. He has accomplished in Him that divine righteousness in raising Him to His right hand. But this is in virtue of a work wrought for us, in which He has glorified God. Thus He is our righteousness, we the righteousness of God in Him. It is the righteousness of faith, for we have it by believing in Him. It is love which-taking the character of grace when sin is in question-reigns, and gives eternal life above and beyond death-life that comes from above and ascends thither again; and that in divine righteousness, and in connection with that righteousness, magnifying it and manifesting it through the work of Jesus Christ, in whom we have this life, when He had wrought what brought out divine righteousness, in order that we might possess eternal life and glory according to it. If grace reigns, it is God who reigns. That righteousness should be maintained is that which His nature required. But it is more than maintained according to the measure of the claim God had on man as such. Christ was perfect surely as man; but He has glorified what God is Himself, and, He being raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, God has glorified His righteousness by setting Him at His right hand, as He did His love in giving Him. It is now righteousness in salvation given by grace to those who possessed none-given in Jesus, who by His work laid the full ground for it in glorifying God with regard even to sin, in the place where in this respect all that God is has been displayed.
The fulfilment of the law would have been man’s righteousness: man might have gloried in it. Christ has glorified God-a most weighty point in connection with righteousness, connecting it withal with glory. And grace imparts this to the sinner by imputation, accounting him righteous according to it, introducing him in the glory which Christ merited by His work-the glory in which He was as Son before the world began.
But alas! in this glorious redemption accomplished by grace, which substitutes the righteousness of God and the person of the second Adam for the sinand the person of the first, the perversity of the flesh can find occasion for the sin which it loves, or at least to charge the doctrine with it. If it is by the obedience of One that I am constituted righteous, and because grace superabounds, let us sin that it may abound: that does not touch this righteousness, and only glorifies this superabundance of grace. Is this the apostle’s doctrine? or a legitimate consequence of his doctrine? In no wise. The doctrine is, that we are brought into God’s presence through death, in virtue of the work which Christ therein accomplished, and by having a part in that death. Can we live in the sin to which we are dead? It is to contradict oneself in one’s own words. But, being baptised unto Christ (in His name, to have part with Him, according to the truth contained in the revelation we have of Him), I am baptised to have part in His death for through this it is that I have this righteousness in which He appears before God, and I in Him. But it is to sin that He has died. He has done with it for ever. When He died, He who knew no sin came out of that condition of life in flesh and blood, to which in us sin attached, in which we were sinners; and in which He the sinless One, in the likeness of sinful flesh and as a sacrifice for sin, was made sin for us. [26] We have then been buried with Him by baptism for death (Rom 5:4), having part in it, entering into it by baptism which represents it, in order that, as Christ was raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, we also should walk in newness of life. In a word I am brought into the participation of this divine and perfect righteousness by having part in death unto sin; it is impossible therefore that it should be to live in it. Here it is not duty that is spoken of, but the nature of the thing. I cannot die to a thing in order to live in it. The doctrine itself refutes as absolute nonsense the argument of the flesh, which under the pretence of righteousness will not recognise our need of grace. [27]
Footnotes for Romans Chapter 5
19: Not that the body of course is yet renewed.
20: I reject entirely the interpretation “because we have been justified.” It is not the force of the Greek, and by excluding faith from our being justified contradicts the beginning of chapter 5.
21: The word is emphatic in the original, (‘eautou’) His own love, Rom 5:8.
22: The word “imputed” in this passage (chap. 5: 13) is not the same as righteousness imputed, or faith imputed for righteousness. It means an act (or sum) put to the account of another, not esteeming the person to be such or such.
23: This is a quotation from Hos 6:7 according to its true sense, which accuses Israel of having done the same thing as Adam. “But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant.”
24: The same distinction, with the same difference in the preposition, is found in connection with the righteousness of God, when the apostle speaks of the efficacy of the blood: only he points out who the many are, because the object of faith is presented rather than the efficacy of the work, although this is supposed, chapter 3: 22 (‘oikaiosune de Theou dia pisteoos Iesou Christou eis pantas, kai epi pantas tous pisteuontas’ LIT: “righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ towards all and upon all those who believe”); unto all, and upon all believers. So here it was by one offence (‘eis pantas’ LIT: “towards all,”) and then the many connected with Christ are constituted righteous by His obedience.
25: Not sin. Sin was already there; the law made each of its motions a positive offence.
26: This does not refer simply to bearing our sins: that is the subject of the first part of the epistle. The condition in which we were, as a whole race, was that of fallen sinful Adam. Christ the sinless One came and stood for us and God’s glory substitutively; that is, as a sacrifice in that place, He was made sin, underwent the forsaking of God, and, glorifying God, died in and to the place, to the whole condition of being, in which we were, and in which, as made sin, He stood for us before God. This work, though done as and for man, I doubt not, goes farther than our salvation. He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. He takes away, as God’s Lamb, the sin of the world. His sacrifice is the basis of the condition of that new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
27: Note, we are not here viewed as risen with Christ; the believer being always viewed here, as I have said, as being on the earth, though alive in Christ and justified, it is used as a ground for practice and walk here.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Ninth Section.—The fruit of justification: Peace with God, and…
Ninth Section.—The fruit of justification: Peace with God, and the development of the new life into the experience of Christian hope. The new worship of Christians: They have the free access to grace into the Holy of holies. Therefore they rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, and of the revelation of the real Shekinah of God in the real Holy of holies. They even glory in tribulation also, by which this hope is consummated. The love of God in Christ as security for the realization of Christian hope; Christ’s death our reconciliation; Christ’s life our salvation. The bloom of Christian hope: The solemn joy that God is our God.
Rom_5:1-11
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1Therefore being justified by faith, we have1 peace with God through our 2Lord Jesus Christ: By [Through] whom also we have [have had the]2 access by faith3 [or omit by faith] into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice [triumph]4 in [the]5 hope of the glory of God. 3And not only so, but we glory [triumph]6 in tribulations also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience 4[constancy];7 And patience [constancy], experience [approval];8 and experience 5[approval], hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God [God’s love] is shed abroad [has been poured out] in our hearts by [by means of] the Holy Ghost which is [who was] given unto us. 6For when we were yet9 without strength, in due time [κατὰ καιρόν, at the proper 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 8[though, for the good man, perhaps some one may even dare to die]. But God10 commendeth [doth establish] his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then [therefore], being now justified11 by [ἐν] his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him [or, through him from the wrath]. 10For if, when we were [being]12 enemies, we were reconciled to God by [through, διά] the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by [in, ἐν] his life. 11And not only so, but we also joy [And not only that—i.e., reconciled—but also triumphing]13 in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by [through] whom we have now received the atonement [the reconciliation].14
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
General Survey.—1. Peace with God arising from justification, as hope of the glory of God (Rom_5:1-2). 2. The continuance in, and increase of, this peace, even by tribulations, amid the experience of the love of God (Rom_5:3-5). 3. The proof of the continual increase of the peace, and the certainty of salvation of Christians (Rom_5:6-9). 4. Reconciliation as the pledge of deliverance (salvation), and, as the appropriated atonement, the fountain of blessedness. On Rom_5:1-8, Winzer, Commentat., Leipzig, 1832. [Rom_5:1-12 and chap. 8 describe the effect of justification upon the feelings, or the emotional man; chap. 6, the effect upon the will, or the moral man. It produces peace in the heart and holiness in the character of the believer.—P. S. ]
Rom_5:1. Therefore, being justified by faith [Δικαιωθέντες οὖν ἐκ πίστεω ς]. The οὖν expresses the conclusion that arises from the preceding establishment of the truth of the δικαίωσις by faith [Rom_3:21 to Rom_4:25]. Therefore δικαιωθέντες is closely connected with δικαίωσις. [The aorist tense δικαιωθέντες, which is emphatically placed at the head of the sentence, implies that justification is an act already done and completed when we laid hold of Christ by a living faith, but not necessarily at our baptism (Wordsworth), which is a sealing ordinance, like circumcision (Rom_4:11), and does not always coincide in time with regeneration and justification (remember the case of Abraham and Cornelius on the one hand, and Simon Magus on on the other). ἐκ πίστεως, out of faith, as the subjective or instrumental cause and appropriating organ, while the grace of God in Christ is the objective or creative cause of justification, by which we are transferred from the state of sin and damnation to the state of righteousness and life.—P. S.] Meyer: “The extent of the blessedness of the justified (not their holiness, as Rothe would have it) shall now be portrayed.” It is a description of the blessedness of Christians in its source, its maintenance, its apparent imperfection yet real perfection, its certainty, and its ever more abundant development. The condition of one who is not justified is that of fighting with God (see Rom_5:9).
[We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, εἰρήνην ἔχομεν πρὸς τὸν θεόν‚ κ.τ.λ. The bearing of the difference of reading here deserves more attention than it has yet received. We reluctantly adopt, for internal reasons, with Dr. Lange and the great majority of commentators, the indicative ἔκομεν, we have, for the subjunctive ἔκωμεν (Vulg.: habeamus). The latter, it must be admitted, has in its favor not only the overwhelming weight of ancient MSS., Versions, and Fathers,15 but also the critical canon: lectio difficilior princi atum tenet; being the more difficult reading, its alteration into the easier ἔκομεν can be better accounted for than its introduction. If we retain ἔκωμεν(with Lachmann, Tregelles, and Alford, 5th ed.), we must consistently take καυκώμεθα, Rom_5:2-3, likewise in the subjunctive mood; and thus the whole passage, instead of being, as usually understood, a statement of the blessed effects of justification upon the heart, becomes an exhortation to go on from peace to peace and from glory to glory, on the ground of the accomplished fact of justification. Different explanations, however, may be given to ἔκωμεν. (1) The deliberative sense: shall we have? But the deliberative subjunctive is only used in doubtful questions, as Mar_12:14 : δῶμεν ἤ μὴ δῶμεν; Rom_6:1 : ἐπιμένωμεν τῇ άμαρτίᾳ; (2) The concessive sense: we may have, it is our privilege to have. This would give excellent sense. But such a use of the Greek subjunctive approaching the meaning of the future, though easily derived from the general principle that the subjunctive mood signifies what is objectively possible, as the indicative expresses what is actual, and the optative what is desirable or subjectively possible, is somewhat doubtful, and not mentioned by Winer (p. 268, 7th ed.), who, in independent sentences, admits only the conjunctivus adhortativus and the conjunctivus deliberativus; comp. Kühner, §§ 463, 464, and Jelf, § 415. (3) There remains, therefore, only the hortative sense: let us have peace. But here arises the doctrinal difficulty, that peace is not the result of man’s exertions, but a gift of God bestowed, and the object of prayer in the epistolary inscriptions; comp. 1 and 2Pe_1:2 : “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you;” yet two analogous passages might be quoted—viz., 2Co_5:19 : kαταλλάγητε τῶ Θεῶ, reconciliamini Deo; and especially Heb_12:28 : ἔκωμεν κάριν, let us have grace (where, however, some MSS. read ἒκομεν, the Vulg. habemus, and where κάρις is understood by some in the sense of gratitude).16 It might be said, also, in support of this explanation, that faith, hope, love, and all Christian graces, are likewise gifts of grace, and yet objects to be pursued and maintained. (4) A few commentators, quite recently Forbes (not in the translation, but in the comments, p. 179), take ἔκωμεν = κατέκωμεν, let us hold fast and enjoy peace; comp. Heb_10:23 : κατέκωμεν τὴν ὁμιλογίαν τῆς ἐλπίδος ἀκλινῆ. But in this case we should expect the article before εἰρήνην, and a previous mention of peace in the argument. The indicative ἔκομεν, on the other hand, is free from all grammatical and doctrinal difficulty, and is in keeping with the declaratory character of the section.—Peace with God, εἰρήνην πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, in our relation to God. It expresses the state of reconciliation (opposite to the state of condemnation, Rom_8:1), in consequence of the removal of God’s wrath and the satisfaction of His justice by the sacfice of Christ, who is our Peace; Eph_2:14-16. Comp. Herodian 8, 7. Romans 8 : ἀντὶ πολέμου μὲν εἰρήνην ἔκοντες πρὸς θεούς, and other classical parallels quoted by Meyer and Philippi. On πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, comp. Act_2:17; Act_24:16; 2Co_7:4. This objective condition of peace implies, as a necessary consequence, the subjective peace of the soul, the tranquillitas animi, the pax conscientiœ, which flows from the experience of pardon and reconciliation; Php_4:7; Joh_16:33. Sin is the source of all discord and war between man and God, and between man and man; and hence there can be no peace until this curse is removed. All other peace is an idle dream and illusion. Being at peace with God, we are at peace with ourselves and with our fellow-men. Paul often calls God the “God of peace;” Rom_15:33; 2Co_13:11; 1Th_5:23; 2Th_3:16; Heb_13:20. Comp. also Isa_32:17 : “the work of righteousness is peace.”—P. S.]
Rom_5:2. Through whom also we. These words do not announce a climax in the description of the merit of Christ (Köllner); nor do they state the ground of the preceding διὰ ̓Ιησοῦ X. (Meyer), but the immediate result of the redemption. [καί, also, is not accumulative, but indicates that the προςαγωγὴ εἰς τὴν κάριν, itself a legitimate consequence of justification, is the ground of εἰρήνη.—P. S.]—Have obtained access. [τὴν προζαγωγήν ἐσκήκαμεν; literally, have had the (well-known, the only possible) introduction (in the active sense), or better, access (intransitive). The perfect refers to the time of justification and incorporation in Christ, and implies the continued result, since in Him and through Him, as the door and Mediator, we have an open way, the right and privilege of daily approach to the throne of grace; in distinction from the one yearly entrance of the Jewish high-priest into the Holy of Holies. This is the universal priesthood of believers.—P. S.] Explanations of the προςαγωγή: 1. Meyer: admission, introduction (Hinzuführung). This is claimed to be the only grammatical signification.17 It certainly denotes the entrance effected by mediation, where it means admission, audience. But this requirement [the προσαγωγεύς, sequester, the mediator or interpreter, who introduces persons to sovereigns, Lamprid. in Alex. Sev. 4.—P. S.] is secured here by δἰ οὗ, which does not well suit this interpretation. 2. Access. [Vulg.: accessum; πρόζοδος, εἴζοδος.] The view of Œcumenius, and most expositors [Philippi, Ewald, Stuart, Hodge, Alford]; see Eph_2:18; Eph_3:12. (Tholuck finally decides for the active sense.) The image, at bottom, is plainly not that of a worldly audience with an Eastern king, but the type of the entrance of the high-priest into the Holy of Holies (see 1Pe_3:18 : Χριστὸς ἔπαθεν, ἵνα ἡμᾶς προζαγάγη τῶ θεῷ; Heb_10:19 : ἔκοντες τὴν παῤῥησίαν εἴς τὴν εἲζοδον τῶνἁγίων ἐν τῶ αἵματι ̓Ιησοῦ). This view is also in harmony with the idea of the Epistle, by which Christianity is the true worship restored, or rather first realized; and in this connection the δόξα θεοῦ has reference to the Shekinah of the Holy of Holies.—Obtained (erlangt haben). Tholuck justly regards it as pedantic prudery in Meyer (after Fritzsche) to hold that ἐσκήκαμεν does not mean nacti sumus et habemus, but habuimus (when we became Christians). Meyer more appropriately says: “The divine grace in which the justified participate is represented as a spacial compass.” But he has not made good this remark. We have free access into the real Holy of Holies, which is grace; and hope to behold in it the real Shekinah, the δόξα of God; and, looking at it, to participate of it.—Into this grace. [The ταύτην is emphatic—such a glorious grace.—P. S.] Those who adhere to the reading τῇ πίστει in Rom_5:2 [see Textual Note 3] connect therewith εἰς τὴν κάριν (a connection which Meyer properly rejects, πίστις εἰς τὴν κάριν!), and understand προσαγωγή absolutely: access to God.18 But the προσαγωγή can refer only to κάρις (Meyer, and others), and, indeed, to grace as justifying grace; and does not denote saving favor in general (Chrysostom), although that central idea of grace comprehends all. For other untenable explanations: the gospel (Fritzsche); hope of blessedness (Beza); apostleship (Semler); see De Wette. The access to this grace is more particularly explained by the addition, wherein [ἐνᾗ refers to κάριν, not to the doubtful πίστει.—P. S.] we stand, or into which we have entered. The ἑστήκαμεν therefore does not denote here, standing fast (Tholuck, Meyer), either in the sense of subjective activity (Beausobre),19 or of objective, secure possession (Calvin).20 It refers back to the act of the δικαίωσις, with which the introduction into the κάρις has begun, and accordingly the προσαγωγή denotes the free and permanent access of all believers into the κάρις, in contrast with the once yearly entrance of the high-priest into the Holy of Holies. We need hardly mention that this permanent access is effected and conditioned by the life of prayer, and especially by daily purification, in the comfort of the atonement (Heb_10:22-23).
And triumph (glory) in the hope of the glory of God [καὶ καυκώμεθα ἐπ’ ἐλπίδιτῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ]. The verb καυκάομαι [usually with ἐν, also with ἐπί, ὑπέρ, and with the accusative of the object] denotes the expression of a joyous consciousness of blessedness with reference to the objective ground of blessedness; in which true glorying is distinctly contrasted with its caricature, vain boasting in a vain state of mind, and from a vain ground or occasion. Reiche emphasizes the rejoicing, Meyer the glorying. The ἐπί, explained as propter (by Meyer), denotes more definitely the basis on which Christians establish their glorying.21 The ground of the glorying of Christians in their present state is not the δόξα θεοῦ itself, but the hope of the glory of God, as one conception; indeed, the whole Christianity of this life is a joyous anticipation of beholding the glory.22 Tholuck: “δόξα θε͂οῦ is not, as Origen holds, the genitive of object, the hope of beholding this glory, which would need to have been expressed more definitely; still less is Chrysostom’s view right, that it is the hope that God will glorify Himself in us. Neither are Luther, Grotius, Calixtus, Reiche, correct in calling it the genitive of author, the glory to be bestowed by God; but it is the genitive of possession, participation in the glory possessed by God; comp. 1Th_2:12.” But more account should be made of beholding, as the means of appropriation. To behold God’s glory, means also, to become glorious. This is definitely typified in the history of Moses (2Co_3:13; Exo_34:33). Tholuck also remarks: “The θεωρεῖν τὴν δόξαν τοῦ Χριστοῦ, Joh_17:24, is the participation in the δόξα θεοῦ, the συγκληρονομεῖν, the συμβασιλεύειν, and συνδοξασθῆναι τῷ Χριστῷ; Rom_8:17; 2Ti_2:11. Cocceius: ‘Hœc est gloriatio fidelium, quod persuasum habent, fore, ut Deus gloriosus et admirabilis in ipsis fiat illuminando, sanctificando, Iœtificando, glorificando in ipsis; 2Th_1:10.’ ” As the seeing of man on God’s side perfects the vision of man, according to 1Co_13:12, it is the beholding of the glory of the Lord on man’s side by which he shall become perfectly conformed to the Lord, and thus an object of perfect good pleasure, according to 1Jn_3:2; Mat_5:8; comp. 2Pe_1:4. The goal of this reciprocal δοξάζειν and δοξάζεσθαι is, in a conditional sense, the removal to the inheritance of glory in the future world; 2Co_5:1; and, in the absolute sense, the time of the second coming of Christ; Revelation 20.
[This triumphant assurance of faith is incompatible with the Romish doctrine of the uncertainty of salvation. A distinction should be made, however, between assurance of a present state of grace, which is necessarily implied in true faith, as a personal apprehension of Christ with all His benefits, and assurance of future redemption, which is an article of hope (hence ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι), and must be accompanied with constant watchfulness. Christ will lose none of those whom the Father has given Him (Joh_17:12; Joh_10:28-29); but God alone knows His own, and to whom He chooses to reveal it. We must give diligence to make our calling and election sure to ourselves (2Pe_1:10), and work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, because God worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Php_2:12-13). The possibility of ultimate failure was a powerful motive and stimulus to faithfulness and holiness even in the life of an apostle, who exercised severe self-discipline, lest, having preached to others, he might himself at last be rejected, and lose the incorruptible crown of the Christian race (1Co_9:27). How much more, then, should ordinary Christians, who stand, take heed lest they fall (1Co_10:12)!—P. S.]
Rom_5:3. And not only so [sc., do we triumph in the hope of glory; comp. the parallels in Meyer]. Tholuck appropriately says: “This hope of the Christian—sure of its triumph—seems to be put to scorn by the present condition, as those first Christians had to bear the scorn of the Gentiles by contrasting their gloomy present with their abundant hope. [Quotations from Minucius Felix, Arnobius, and Melanchthon.] But the Apostle’s lofty mind shows how that δόξα is not an outward accident, but a moral glorification, having its root in this θλίψις; therefore this itself, as the means of perfection, is the subject of triumph.” See Rom_8:17; Rom_8:28; Rom_8:35; 2Co_11:30; 2Co_12:9-10 [ὅταν γὰρ ἀσθενῶ, δυνατός εἰμι]; 2Ti_2:11; Mat_5:10; Mat_5:12; Act_5:41; 1Pe_4:12; Jam_1:3; Jam_1:12. [It is a universal law, acknowledged even in the world, that no great character can become complete without trial and suffering. As the firmness of the root is tested by the storm, and the metal is purified in the heat of the furnace, so the strength and purity of character is perfected by trial. The ancient Greeks and Romans admired a good man struggling against misfortune as a spectacle worthy of the gods. Plato describes the righteous man as one who, without doing injustice, yet has the appearance of the greatest injustice, and proves his own justice by perseverance against all calumny unto death; yea, he predicts that the perfect man, if such a one should ever appear, would be scourged, tortured, and nailed to the post (Politia, p. 74 sq. ed. Ast.). Seneca says (De prov. iv. 4): “Gaudent magni viri rebus adversis non aliter quam fortes milites bellis triumphant.” Edmund Burke: ”Obloquy is a necessary ingredient of all true glory. Calumny and abuse are essential parts of triumph.” But what a difference between the proud stoicism of the heathen, who overcomes the misfortunes by haughty contempt and unfeeling indifferentism, and the Christian’s gentle patience, forgiving love, and cheerful submission to the holy will of God, who ordered tribulation as a means and condition of moral perfection! Comp. my book on The Person of Christ, p. 90 ff., 216 f.—P. S.]
In [on account of] tribulations. [Comp. 2Co_7:4.] The ἐν must express the antithesis to the preceding; it must therefore not be explained as local: in [amidst] the tribulations (as Köllner, Glöckler, Baumgarton-Crusius). In that case, the very object of the κανκᾶσθαι would be wanting. [Gloriamur de calamitatibus, not, in calamitatibus. The θλίψεις (or their moral results rather) are the object and ground of the καύκησις; καυκᾶσθαι being mostly constructed with ἐν; Rom_5:11; Gal_6:13; 2Co_10:15. The Jew is said to glory in the law, the Christian in the cross, &c. So also Tholuck, Meyer, Alford, Hodge. The tribulations are to the Christian what the scars of the battlefield are to an old soldier; comp. Gal_6:17.—P. S.]23
Knowing [because we know] that tribulation. This is the normal development of the believer’s life out of its tribulation. Yet this development is not a natural necessity (see Mat_13:21). Yet it is assumed in the exceptions that the faith was somehow damaged. [The following climax is remarkably vivid and pregnant.]
Rom_5:4. Constancy (endurance, steadfastness). The ὑπομονή is not patientia here (Vulgate, Luther, E. V.). Yet steadfastness cannot be acquired without patientia. Luk_22:28 : οἱ διαμεμενηκότες μετ̓ ἐμοῦ ἐν τοῖς πειρασμοῖς. Comp. Jam_1:3. [The virtue of ὑπομονή, which Chrysostom calls the βασιλὶς τῶν ἀρετῶν, is patient endurance (Ausdauer, Standhaftigkeit), and combines the Latin patientia and perseverantia. It involves the element of ἀνδρία, the bravery and manliness with which the Christian contends against the storms of trials and persecutions. Meyer adduces, as applicable here, Cicero’s definition of perseverantia: “in ratione bene considerata stabilis et perpetua permansio.” On the difference between ὑπομονή, μακροθυμία, and ἀνοκή, comp. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, Second Series, ed. 1864, p. 11.—P. S.]
Approval (proof), δοκιμή. [Comp. 2Co_2:9; 2Co_8:2; 2Co_9:13; Php_2:22.]. Not trial (Grotius), for the δλίψις itself is trial; nor experience (Luther [E. V.]), for experience is the whole Christian life. It is the condition of approval, whose subjective expression is the consciousness of being sealed; Eph_2:13. [Bengel: “δοκιμή est qualitas ejus, qui est δόκιμος.” Hodge: “The word is used metonymically for the result of trial, i.e., approbation, or that which is proved worthy of approbation. It is tried integrity, a state of mind which has stood the test.” Jam_1:3 : τὸ δοκίμιον ὑμῶν τῆς πίστεως κατεργάζεται ὑπομονήν, does not contradict our passage; for δοκίμιον, as Philippi remarks, corresponds to θλίψις, and is a means of trial, or = (δοκιμασία, trial, probation, the result of which is δοκιμή, approval.—P. S.]
Hope [ἐλπίδα, viz., τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ, which is naturally suggested by Rom_5:2. Hope, like faith and love, and every other Christian grace, is never done in this world, but always growing, and as it bears flower and fruit, its roots strike deeper, and its stem and branches expand. Every progress in Christian life strengthens its foundations.—P. S.] Thus the apparent opposite of Christian hope, affliction, or tribulation, is changed into pure hope, so that the stock of Christian hope ever becomes more intensive and abundant. Eternal profit is derived from all temporal loss and harm.
Rom_5:5. Maketh not ashamed. Strictly: it does not shame, by causing to be deceived. [Calvin: Habet certissimum salutis exitum. Bengel: Spes erit res. Comp. Psa_119:116 : אַל־חְּכִישֵׁנִי; Sept.: μὴ καταισκύνῃς με ἀπὸ τῆς προςδοκίας μου. Meyer quotes parallels from Plato.—P. S.] Christian hope is formed from the same material of divine spiritual life as faith and love; it is really faith itself, tending toward completion; or it is love itself as it here lives in the principles of perfection. Therefore it is infallible.
Because God’s love [genitive of the subject, not of the object, as in Rom_5:8 : τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἀγάπην εἰς ἡμᾶς. The ground of our assurance that hope shall not put us to the shame of disappointment, is not our own strength or goodness, but the free love of God to us and in us.—P. S.] It is plain from the context that God’s love to us is meant (Origen, Chrysostom, Luther, Calvin, and down to Philippi [Meyer, De Wette, Tholuck, Stuart, Alford, Hodge]), and not our love of God (Theodoret, Augustine, Klee, Glöckler [Anselm, St. Bernárd, several Catholic expositors (amor infusus, justitia infusa), Hofmann], and others). Our love of God can at best be a testimony of our hope, but not the ground of the infallibility of our hope. See also Rom_5:8. Yet the antithesis should not be too strongly pressed: the love of God for us shed abroad in the heart, becomes our love to God.24—Has been (and continues to be) poured out [as in a stream, ἐκκέκυται]. Denoting the richest experience and sense of God’s love. [Comp. Act_2:17; Act_10:45; Tit_3:6, where πλουσίως is added. Philippi: “The love of God did not descend upon us as dew in drops, but as a stream which spreads itself through the whole soul, filling it with a consciousness of His presence and favor.”—P. S.]25—In our hearts. Strictly: throughout them: ἐν, not εἰς. [ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις denotes the motus in loco, as Meyer says, or the rich diffusion of God’s love within our hearts. Comp. Psa_45:2, Septuagint: ἐξεκύθη κάρις ἐν κείλεσί σου. Alford (after Olshausen): “ἐν may be taken pregnantly, ἐκκέκ. εἰς καὶ μένει ἐν—or better, denotes the locality where the outpouring takes place—the heart being the seat of our love, and of appreciation and sympathy with God’s love.”—P. S.]—By means of the Holy Spirit who was given unto us [διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου τοῦ δοθέντος ἡμῖν]. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the causality of the experience of the love of God. Rom_8:15-16; Gal_4:6. [The Holy Spirit mediates all the gifts of grace to us, and glorifies Christ in us. Olshausen and Alford refer the aorist participle to the Pentecostal effusion of the Spirit. But this could not apply to Paul, who was called afterwards. Hence it must be referred to the time of regeneration, when the pentecostal fact is repeated in the individual.—P. S.]
Rom_5:6. For Christ, when we were yet [Ἔτι γὰρ Χριστὸς ὁντων ἡμῶν, κ.τ.λ.. On the different readings, ἔτι γάρ, for yet, or still, with a second ἔτι, after ἀσθενῶν א), εἴγε, if indeed, with the second ἔτι (B.), ἕτι γάρ, without the second ἔτι (text. rec.), εἰς τί γάρ ((D 2. F.), εἰ γάρ, εἰ δέ, see Textual Note 9.—P. S.] The ἔτι, [tunc adhuc], according to the sense, belongs to ὄντων, &c. [Comp. Mat_12:46 : ἕτι αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος; Luk_15:20 : ἕτι δέ αὺτοῦ μακρὰν ἀπέκοντος. Similar transpositions of ἔτι among the classics. See the quotations of Meyer in loc., and Winer, Gramm., p. 515.—P. S.] Seb. Schmid, and others, have incorrectly understood ἔτι as insuper [moreover, furthermore; but this would be ἔτι δέ, Heb_11:36, not ἔτι γάρ.—P. S.]; contrary not only to the meaning of the word, but also to the context. They hold that the ἔτι does not enhance the preceding, but gives the ground why the confidence of salvation is an ever-increasing certainty. Tholuck, with Meyer, favoring the ἔτι at the beginning of the verse, says that ἔτι has been removed at the beginning because a Bible-lesson began with the verse [with the word Χριστός]. The result was, that it was partly removed, partly doubled, and partly corrected. We hold that the twofold ἔτι, which Lachmann reads [and which Cod. Sin. sustains] has a good meaning as emphasis.
Rom_5:7. When we were yet weak, or, without (spiritual) strength [ὄντων ἡμῶν ἀσθενῶν ἐτι]. The state of sin is here represented as weakness or sickness in reference to the divine life, and consequently as helplessness, in order to declare that, at that time, believers could not do the least toward establishing the ground of their hope. [Comp. Isa_53:4, Septuagint: τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν φέρει, with Mat_8:17 : τὰς ἀσθενείας ἡνῶν ἒλαβε. Sin is here represented as helpless weakness, in contrast with the saving help of Christ’s love.—P. S.] The ὰσθενεῖς are then denominated α Ìσεβεῖς, ungodly, in order to express the thought that we, as sinners, could not add any thing to the saving act of Christ, but did our utmost to aggravate the work of Christ. Sinfulness is represented, therefore, not merely as “the need of help,” and thus “as the motive of God’s love intervening for salvation” (Meyer), but as the startingpoint of redemption, where the love of God accomplished the great act of salvation without any cooperation of sinners—yea, in spite of their greatest opposition.
At the proper time (or, in due season). Κατὰ καιρόν. Two26 connections of the κατὰκ.: 1. It is united to ὄντων, &c. We were weak according to the time [pro temporum rationed,] in the sense of excuse (Erasmus); in the sense of the general corruption (according to Calvin, Luther, Hofmann). Against this are both the position of καιρός, and its signification. 2. It is referred to ἀπέθανεν, but in different ways. Origen: at that time, when He suffered. Abelard: held awhile in death. [Kypke, Reiche, Philippi, Alford, Hodge: at the appointed time, foretold by the prophets.—P. S.] Meyer: As it was the full time [proper time] for the deliverance of those who lived at that time. Better: It was the fit time in the history of humanity. This by no means weakens the principal thought, which rather requires the definite statement that the sacrificial death of Christ was according to Divine wisdom; since the necessity for salvation and the capacity for salvation were decided with the fulness of natural corruption. The highest heroism of the self-sacrifice does not exclude its reasonableness. See Rom_16:25; Gal_4:4; Eph_1:10; 1Ti_2:6; Tit_1:3. [κατὰ καιρόν is = ἐνκαιρῶ, εἰς καιρόν, ἐπὶ καιροῦ, καιρίως, tempore opportuno; in opposition to παρὰ καιρόν, tempore alieno, untimely. Here it is essentially the same with the πλήρωμα τῶν καιρῶν, Eph_1:10, and the πλήρωμα τροῦ κρόνου, Gal_4:4; comp. Mar_1:15. Christ appeared when all the preparations for His coming and His kingdom in the Jewish and Gentile world were completed, and when the disease of sin had reached the crisis. This was God’s own appointed time, and the most, or rather the only, appropriate time. Christ could not have appeared with divine fitness and propriety, nor with due effect, at any other time, nor in any other race or country. We cannot conceive of His advent at the time of Noah, or Abraham, or in China, or among the savage tribes of America. History is a unit, and a gradual unfolding of a Divine plan of infinite wisdom. Christ is the turning-point and centre of history, the end of the old and the beginning of the new humanity—a truth which is confessed, wittingly or unwittingly, by every date from A. D. throughout the civilized world.—P. S.]
For the ungodly. ὑπέρ, for, for the good of. It is a fuller conception than the idea instead of, ἀντί, if we remember that, where the question is concerning a dying for those who are worthy of death, the conception naturally involves a well-understood ἀντί. See Mat_20:28. The terms ὑπέρ and περί [which Paul uses synonymously, Gal_1:4] are more comprehensive; but the expression ἀντί is the most definite one. [Meyer contends that ὑπέρ and περί always mean for, in behalf of, for the benefit of, and not ἀντί, in the place of, loco, although, in the case of Christ, His death for the benefit of sinners was a vicarious sacrifice; Rom_3:25; Eph_5:2; 1Ti_2:6. Sometimes the ὑπέρ, like the English preposition for, according to the context, necessarily involves the ἀντι, as in 2Co_5:15; 2Co_5:20-21; Gal_3:13; Phm_1:13. The Apostle says ὑπὲρ ἀσεβῶν, instead of ὑπέρ ἡμῶν, in order to bring out more fully, by this strong antithesis, the amazing love of Christ.—P. S.]
Rom_5:7. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, though, for the good man, perhaps some one may even dare to die [Μόλις γάρ ὑπὲρ δικαίου (without the article) τις ἀποθανεῑται ὑπὲρ γὰρ (the second γάρ seems to be exceptive, and introduces a correction of the preceding with reference to μόλις: with difficulty, I say, for it is a fact that) τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ (with the article) τάχα τις καὶ τολμᾷ ἀποθανεῖν.—P. S.]. The difficulty of this verse has led to various conjectures.27 The Peshito reads ὑπὲρ ἀδίκων (unrighteous), instead of ὑπὲρ δικαίου; Erasmus, Luther, Melanchthon, &c., read δικαίου and ἀγαθοῦ as neuter words; Hofmann [formerly, not now.—P. S.]: at least the latter is neuter; Origen, on the contrary, held merely δικ. as neuter, and understood by ἀγαθός, Christ as the perfectly good One. But, as Meyer properly observes, that both substantives are masculine, is evident from the antithesis ἀσεβεῖς, by which the question is generally concerning a dying for persons. [δικαίου, without the article, must be masculine—a righteous person (not the right, τὸ δικαιον); but τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, with the article, may, grammatically, be taken as neuter = summum bonum (the country, or any good cause or noble principle for which martyrs have died in ancient and modern times). Yet, in this case, the antithesis would be lost, since Christ likewise died for the highest good, the salvation of the world. The antithesis is evidently between men who scarcely are found to die for a δικαιος, though occasionally perhaps for ὁ (their) ἀγαθός, and Christ who died for ἀσεβεῖς, Rom_5:6; or ἁμαρτωλοί, Rom_5:8; and even for ἐκθροί (the very opposite of ἀγαθός), Rom_5:10. In both cases, the death for persons, not for a cause, is meant.—P. S.]
Explanations of the masculines:
(1) There is no material difference between δίκαιος and ἀγαθός. “After Paul has said that scarcely for a ‘righteous’ man will one die, he will add, by way of establishing his assertion, that there might occur instances of the undertaking of such a death.” Meyer, in harmony with Chrysostom, Theodoret, Erasmus, Calvin,28 &c. But δικαιος is not ἀγαθός, and μόλις (scarcely) is not τάκα (possibly).
(2) ὁ ἀγαθός is the benefactor. Knachtbull [Animadv. in libros N. T., 1659, p. 120], Estius [Cocceius, Hammond], and many others; Reiche, Tholuck: The Friend of Man. This is too special.
(3) The ἀγαθός stands above the merely righteous or just one. Ambrosiaster: the noble one, the ἀγαθός by nature; Bengel: homo innoxius exempli gratia, &c. [”δικ., indefinitely, implies a harmless (guiltless) man; ὁ ἀγαθός, one perfect in all that piety demands, excellent, bounteous, princely, blessed—for example, the father of his country.”—P. S.]
Meyer regards all these as ”subtle distinctions.” [He quotes, for the essential identity of δίκαιος and ἀγαθός, Mat_5:45;. Luk_23:50; Rom_7:12, where both are connected.—P. S.] Then the difference between the Old and New Testament would also be a subtle drawing of distinctions. The Old Testament, even in its later period, scarcely produced one kind of martyrdom; but the New Testament has a rich martyrdom. Yet we would understand the ἀγαθός in a more general sense. The δίκαιος instills respect, but he does not establish, as such, a communion and exchange of life; but the ἀγαθός inspires. Paul’s acknowledgment here, which was supported by heathen examples, is a proof of his apostolic considerateness, and of his elevation above all slavery to the letter. An ecclesiastical rhetorician would have suppressed the concession. The selection of the expression with τάκα and τολμᾶ is admirable; such self-sacrifices are always made headlong in the ecstasy of sympathetic generosity.
4. It is hardly necessary to mention the view [maintained by Meyer in the first edition, but now given up by him.—P. S.], that the second member of the sentence is interrogative: for who would dare to die readily even for the good?
[I can see no material difference between interpretations 2 and 3. The principal point in both is the distinction made between δίκαιος (taken in a narrower sense) and ὁ ἀγαθός, corresponding to our distinction between just and kind. Such a distinction is made by Cerdo in Irenæus Adv. hœr. i. 27, quoted also by Eusebius, H. E., iv. Romans 11 : τὸν μὲν δίκαιον, τὸν δὲ ἀγαθὸν ὑπάρκειν, alterum quidem justum, alterum autem bonum esse; and by Cicero, De offic., iii. Romans 15 : ”Si vir bonus is est qui prodest quibus potest, nocet nemini, recte (certe) justum virum, bonum non facile reperiemus” (but some editions read: ”certe istum virum bonum”).29 The righteous man, who does all that the law or justice requires, commands our respect and admiration; the good man, the benefactor, who is governed by love, inspires us with love and gratitude. Then we would have the following sense: “It is hardly to be expected that any one would die for a righteous man, though for the good man (i.e., for a kind benefactor or intimate friend), this self-denial might possibly be exercised, and does occasionally occur. So Olshausen, Tholuck, Philippi, Turner, Stuart, Hodge, Alford, Wordsworth. The latter refers to the death of Orestes for Pylades, his alter ego, and of Alcestis for Admetus, her husband. Webster and Wilkinson: ”To make the admission less at variance with the first assertion, he substitutes for δικαίου, τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, the man of eminent kindness and philanthropy, the well-known benefactor, κρηστός, ‘bonus,’ in advance of δικαίου.” The article before ἀγαθοῦ may be pressed as justifying the distinction: a righteous man, the good man, good to him, his benefactor. I confess, I am not quite satisfied with this interpretation, but it is better than any other.—P. S.]
Rom_5:8. But God doth establish [giveth proof of, συνίστησιν, as in iii. 5; comp. Textual Note8, on p. 113.—P. S.] God proves not merely His love in the death of Christ for sinners, according to Rom_5:6, but He makes it conspicuous and prominent; He exhibits it; He makes it the highest manifestation of His gospel. See Joh_3:16; 2Co_5:19-21. Luther: He praises [E. V., He commends] His love toward us [τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἀγάπην, His own love, in contrast with the love of men, Rom_5:7.—P. S.]
Rom_5:9. Much more, therefore, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved through him from the wrath [ἀπὸ τῆςὀργῆς, from the well-known and well-deserved wrath to come.—P. S.] According to Estius, a conclusion a minoriad majus; according to Meyer, a conclusion a majore ad minus.30 Both are in part right and in part wrong, because neither view exactly applies. It is a conclusion from the principle to the consequence, and a conclusion from the truth of the almost incredible to the truth of that which is self-evident. The conclusion is still further strengthened by the antithesis: as enemies, we were justified by His blood, and, as being His fellow-participants in peace, we shall be preserved from the wrath by the glorious exercise of His authority, and then by His life. Preservation from wrath is a negative expression of perfect redemption. 1Th_1:10. Compare the positive expression of 1 Tim. 4:18.—[By his blood. αἷμα is the concrete expression for the atoning death of Christ, which is the meritorious cause of our justification. This does not rest on our works, nor our faith, nor any thing we have done or can do, but on what Christ has done for us; comp. Rom_3:25.—P. S.]
Rom_5:10. For if, being enemies [εἰ γὰρἐκθροὶὅντες]. It may be asked whether ἐκθροί—that is, God’s enemies—is to be explained actively or passively; whether it denotes the enemies [haters] of God, according to Rom_8:7 [ἔκθρα εἰς θεόν]; Col_1:21 (Eph_2:15 does not belong here), or those who are charged with God’s wrath [hated by God], for which view Rom_11:28 [where ἐκθροι is the opposite of ἀγαπητοί; comp. also θεοστυγεῖς, Rom_1:13, and τέκνα ὀργῆς, Eph_2:3.—P. S.] has been cited. The passive interpretation has been supported by Calvin, Reiche, Fritzsche, Tholuck, Krehl, Baumgarten-Crusius, De Wette, Philippi, Meyer [Alford, Hodge], and the active or subjective interpretation by31 Spener, Tittmann, Usteri, and Rückert [among English commentators, by Turner]. Meyer says in favor of the first view: 1. ”Christ’s death did not destroy the enmity of men toward God; but, by effecting their pardon on the part of God, it destroyed the enmity of God toward men, whence the cessation of man’s enmity toward God follows as a moral consequence, brought about by faith. 2. And how could Paul have been able to infer properly his πολλῶ μᾶλλον, &c., since the certainty of the σωθησόμεθα rests on the fact that we stand in a friendly relation (grace) to God, and not on our being friendly toward God? ” These two arguments have a very orthodox sound, but are without a vital grasp of the fact of the atonement, and here without force. For, first of all, the death of Christ is as well a witness and seal of God’s love, which overcomes man’s enmity and distrust, as it is an offering of reconciliation, which removes the ὀργὴ θεοῦ in His government and in the conscience of man. This element constitutes the principal motive force in the living preaching of the gospel; for example, among the Moravians. In the next place, if we look away from God’s work in man, we have no ground for assuming an increase [πολλῶ μᾶλλον] in God’s love and grace in itself. God is unchangeable; man is changeable. The changed relation of man to God is indeed conditioned by a changed relation of God to him; but it is by virtue of God’s unchangeableness that the work of God, which has begun in man, bears the pledge of completion. See Php_1:6. The sealing signifies, not a sealing of God, but of man by God’s grace. It is not biblical to say, that Christ, by His death, has removed God’s enmity toward us. And yet the Apostle is alleged to say that here, just after he has said: But God sets forth and commends His love, &c. Then the odd sense would be: We have been even reconciled when we were not yet reconciled!
We were reconciled to God [κατηλλάγημεν τῷ Θεῷ].
[Some preliminary philological remarks on this important term, which occurs here for the first time, may be found useful. The verbs διαλάσσω, καταλάσσω, ἀποκαταλάσσω, συναλάσσω (from ἀλάσσω, to change), express the general idea of a change of relation of two parties at enmity into a relation of peace, or the idea of reconciliation (Versöhnang, Aussöhnung), with a slight modification, indicated by the prepositions—κατά, in relation to; διά, between; ἀπό, from; σύν, with, but without reference to the question whether the enmity be mutual, or on one side only—which must be decided by the connection. The noun διαλλαγή is more frequently used in the classics than καταλλαγή, but nowhere in the New Testament; the verb διαλάσσω, or διαλάττω occurs only once; in the pass. aor. 2 imperat., Mat_5:24 : διαλλάγηθι τῶ ἀδελφῶ̣ σου, be reconciled to thy brother. The noun καταλλαγή is used four times in the New Testament; Rom_5:11 (E. V., atonement); Rom_11:15 (the reconciling); 2Co_5:18-19 (reconciliation, twice); the corresponding verb καταλάσσω occurs six times—Rom_5:10 (twice); 1Co_7:11; 2Co_5:18-20—and is always rendered in our E. V. to reconcile. The translation atonement, at the close of Rom_5:11, is etymologically correct (at-one-ment = reconciliation), but theologically wrong in the present use of the term = propitiation, expiation (which corresponds to the Greek ἱλασμός; 1Jn_2:2; 1Jn_4:10). The καταλλαγή, in the Christian sense, signifies the great change in the relation betwen God and man, brought about by the voluntary atoning sacrifice of Christ, whereby God’s wrath has been removed, His justice satisfied, and man reunited to Him as His loving and reconciled Father. Some confine the word simply to a reconciliation of man to God, on the ground that no change can take place in God, or that God never hated the sinner. Others forget that the death of Christ is itself the most amazing exhibition of God’s love, whereby He attracts the sinner to Him. The two sides must not be abstractly separated. It is God who, in His infinite love, establishes a new relation between Himself and mankind through the atoning sacrifice of His Son, and removes all legal obstructions which separated us from Him; and on the ground of this objective and accomplished expiation (ἱλασμός) and reconciliation (καταλλαγή), we are called upon to be reconciled to Him (καταλλάγητε τῷ θεῷ; 2Co_5:20; comp. σώθητε ἀπὸ, κ.τ.λ., Act_2:40), i.e., to lay aside all enmity and distrust, and to turn in love and gratitude to Him who first loved us. Both sides are beautifully connected in 2Co_5:18-20 (which is often one-sidedly and wrongly quoted against the doctrine of the vicarious sacrifice), viz., the reconciliation effected once for all by God Himself through the death of His Son, having the world for its object and remission of sins for its effect; and the reconciliation of men to God as a moral process, in which men are exhorted to take part. The first is a finished act of infinite mercy on the part of God in Christ; the second, a change of feeling and a constant duty of man in consequence of what has been done for him. Comp. Kling and Wing on the passage in Lange on 2 Cor., p. 98 f., Amer. edition. Archbishop Trench (Synonymes of the New Testament, Second Part, p. 137 f.) gives the following judicious explanation of the term: “The Christian καταλλαγή has two sides. It is first a reconciliation, ‘quâ Deus nos sibi reconciliavit,’ laid aside His holy anger against our sins, and received us into favor—a reconciliation effected once for all for us by Christ upon His cross; so 2Co_5:18-19; Rom_5:10; in which last passage καταλλάσσεσθαι is a pure passive, ‘ab to in gratiam recipi, apud quem in oaio fueris.’ But καταλλαγή is secondly, and subordinately, the reconciliation, ‘quâ nos Deo reconciliamus,’ the daily deposition, under the operation of the Holy Spirit, of the enmity of the old man toward God. In this passive middle sense καταλλάσσεσθαι is used; 2Co_5:20; and cf. 1Co_7:11. All attempts to make this, the secondary meaning of the word, to be the primary, rest not on an unprejudiced exegesis, but on a foregone determination to get rid of the reality of God’s anger against sin. With καταλλαγή connects itself all that language of Scripture which describes sin as a state of enmity (ἔκθρα) with God (Rom_8:7; Eph_2:15; Jam_4:4); and sinners as enemies to Him, and alienated from Him (Rom_5:10; Col_1:21); Christ on the cross as the Peace, and Maker of peace between God and man (Eph_2:14; Col_1:20); all such language as this, ”Be ye reconciled with God” (2Co_5:20).”—P. S.]
Meyer: “Accordingly it is necessary to understand κατηλλάγημεν and καταλλαγέντες not actively, but passively: reeonciled with God, so that He is no more hostile to us, having given up His wrath against us.” On Tittmann’s attempt to distinguish between διαλλάττειν and καταλλάττειν, see Tholuck on The Sermon on the Mount, Mat_5:24.32 The definition of these expressions is certainly connected with the explanation of ἐκθροί. It may be asked, however, whether the meaning is: God has been reconciled toward us (Meyer, Philippi); or: we have been reconciled toward God; or: there has been a mutual reconciliation? The first cannot be said [?], since the καταλλαγή denotes a change [from enmity to friendship]; also the καταλλαγή in 2Co_5:18, “τοῦ καταλλάξαντος ἡμᾶς ἑαυτῶ,” must be carefully distinguished from the ἱλασμός (see my Angewandte Dogmatik, p. 858).33 The sense is, therefore: While we were still enemies, adversaries of God, we were delivered by the death of Jesus, and the expiating ἱλασμός, which is identical with it, from guilty subjection to the punishment of the ὀργν́, and have been made objects of His conquering operation of love; and now, in the light of this operation of love, we have a heart delivered from the enmity of alienation from God—a heart which, in the train of love, has joy in God. But how can we distinguish between the objective and subjective change of humanity? It is plain, from the risen Redeemer’s salutation of peace and His gospel-message, that the love of Christ on the cross conquered the hatred of humanity. The risen Saviour’s salutation of peace contains the “peace on earth.” Add to all this the difference and antithesis between Rom_5:8-10, which are completely obscured by the prevalent explanation above alluded to. The clause, God commendeth his love toward us, is the inscription to the antithesis, namely: 1. Christ died for us when we were yet sinners. Through His (atoning) blood we have been justified, delivered from the sense of the ὀργή. The effect is, that much more, as being justified (negatively), we shall be saved from the ὀργή which will finally come upon the world. All this is ἱλασμός, expiating destruction of the guilt of sin. 2. The Son of God suffered death while we were enemies. Through His death we are reconciled to God. The effect is, that much more, as being reconciled (positively), we shall be delivered in the mighty power and rule of His life. καταλλαγή is all this.
[In (i.e., in vital union with) his life, ἐν τῆ ζωῆ αὐτοῦ, in antithesis to διὰ (through, by means of) τοῦ θανάτου. If even the death of Christ has such a saving efficacy, how much more His risen life, which triumphed over the realm of death and hell, ascended to the right hand of God Almighty, is clothed with all power in heaven and earth, and which, being communicated by the Holy Ghost to the believer, will conquer in him all opposition, and bring the work of salvation commenced here to a final and glorious consummation. Comp. Joh_14:19 : “Because I live, ye shall live also;” Rom_8:11; Gal_2:20; 1Co_15:23; Heb_7:25. Salvation is effected by the death of Christ, but actually applied by His life; or His death is the meritorious, His life the efficacious cause of our salvaton. Hodge: ”There is, therefore, most abundant ground for confidence for the final blessedness of believers, not only in the amazing love of God, by which, though sinners and enemies, they have been justified and reconciled by the death of His Son, but also in the consideration that this same Saviour that died for them still lives, and ever lives, to sanctify, protect, and save them.”—P. S.]
Rom_5:11. And not only that, but also triumphing in God [Οὐ μόνον δὲ, ὰλλὰ καὶ καυχώ μενοι, (which is the correct reading, instead of the rec. καυχώμεθα, see Textual Note13) ἐν ῶ Θεῶ]. Explanations: 1. The participle καυχώμενοι stands for the finite verb; therefore we must supply ἐσμέν (hence the readings καυχώμεθα, καυχῶμεν,). Rückert, Tholuck. Only σωθμσόμεθα must be supplied to μόνον δέ. The construction then runs thus, according to De Wette: We have not only the hope of escaping from the wrath of God, but we also glory in God. 2. The participle cannot stand for the finite verb (see, on the contrary, the discussions with Meyer, in Tholuck). But even here σωθνσόμεθα only is to be supplied. The sense, then, is this: but not only shall we be saved by His life, but so that with this σώζεσθαι we shall also glory in God. [Alford: “Not only shall we be saved, but that in a triumphant manner and frame of mind.”] 3. Καταλλαγέντες must be supplied. Not only reconciled, but also glorying. Thus formerly Fritzsche, Köllner, Glöckler, Baumgarten-Crusius, and Meyer in his earlier editions. This explanation is proved to be relatively the most correct, as the σώζεσθαι denotes not a mere degree of salvation, but comprises salvation to the point of completion, and as καταλλαγέντς is repeated in δἰ οὗ νῦν τὴν καταλλαγὴν ἐλάβομεν. Our view is, however, that we have here an antithesis of climaxes. Οὐ μόνον σωθησόμεθα—καταλλαγέντες ἐν τῆ ζωῆ Χριστοῦ—ἀλλὰ καὶ καυκώμενοι ἐν ρτῶθεῶ διὰ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. The rising climax is the following: 1. We are delivered from the wrath. 2. We are safely harbored in the life of Christ. 3. God, in His love, has become, through Christ, our God, in whom we glory. We glory not only in the hope of the δόξα of God, and not only conditionally in tribulations, &c., but we glory absolutely in God as our God; see chap. 8.
Through whom we have now. Reference to the future glory, as it is grounded in the experience of the present salvation, and ever develops itself from this base.—Have appropriated [τὴνκαταλλαγὴν ἐλάβομεν]. So we translate the ἐλάβομεν (angeeignet haben), to emphasize the fact of the ethical appropriation, which is very important for the beginning of the following section.
[It is safe to infer from ἐλάβομεν that καταλλαγν́ primarily means here a new relation of God to us, which He has brought about and which we receive, not a new relation of man to God, or a moral change in us, although this is a necessary moral consequence of the former, and inseparable from it. Hence καταλλαγέντες, in Rom_5:10, is parallel with δικαιωθέντες, Rom_5:9 : δικαιωθέντες σωθησόμεθα—καταλλαγὲντες. The article before κατλλαγήν indicates the well-known, the only possible reconciliation, that which was brought about by the atoning sacrifice of Christ. The E. V. here exceptionally renders κατ. by atonement, which, in its old sense (= at-one-ment), meant reconciliation, but is now equivalent to expiation, propitiation, satisfaction. The expiation of Christ (ἱλσμός, ἱλαήριον, the German Versühnung) is the ground and condition of the reconciliation of God and man (καταλλαγή, Versöhnung). Bengel says, on Rom_3:24 : “Propitiation (ἱλασμός) takes away the offence against God; reconciliation (καταλλαγή) has two sides (est δίπλευρος): it removes (a.) God’s indignation against us; 2Co_5:19; (b.) our alienation from God; 2Co_5:20.” In the same place Bengel distinguishes between καταλλαγή and ὰπολύτρωσις (redemption, Erlösung), by referring the former to God, the latter to enemies—i.e., sin and Satan. He remarks, however, that ἱλασμός and ἀπολύτρωσις are fundamentally one single benefit, namely, the restitutio peccatoris perditi.—P. S.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Rom_5:1. The effect of justification is peace with God. Peace with God takes the place of our guilty relation, in which God seemed to be our enemy, because He was hostile to our sins—with which we were identified—and in his ὀργή separated us from Him, in order to separate us from sin. In this relation of guilt we were really His enemies, although we wished to appear to be the contrary. God, in His government, likewise seemed to oppose us unto death, as we opposed Him. And therefore we were at variance also with the best portion of the world, and with the kingdom of all good spirits, as we were at variance with ourselves and with God. But, with our justification, peace is established, and with it the reverse relation in all these respects. We should not speak of the peace of God as of a mere sensation; in the feeling of peace, the most glorious actual relation is reflected. We are not only in harmony, but in covenant union with God; not only in harmony with ourselves, but true to ourselves; not only in harmony with God’s presence and government in the world, and in all events, but also in connection with and under the protection of ”all the stars of heaven.”
2. [Rom_5:2. The access to the throne of grace.] The high-priest, who went into the Holy of Holies in the hope of beholding there the glory of God, was chiefly a type of Christ, who has gone into the real Holy of Holies for His own people, and has become the real atonement for us (Hebrews 9.); but he was also the type of believers, who, through Christ, likewise have free access to the Holy of Holies of grace, in the hope of beholding there the δόξα of God, and being glorified in it (see chap. 8.). On the certainty of the Christian’s hope, see Tholuck, p. 202.
3. We glory in tribulations also, Rom_5:3. Tribulations—subjectively, sorrows; and, taken together, the cross which the Christian must bear after His Saviour—are not only the ordained way to glory, but also the means of promoting glory. For believers shall attain not merely the glory of the Adamic paradise, but rather the higher glory of Christ’s paradise; and this they reach because they are similarly situated, and become like Him in death as in life. The Cross effects the enriched and established consummation.
4. The glorying of Christians is their joyous testimony of a blessed experience—the personal shape which the gospel takes. It is always conditioned according to its changing forms by a fundamental form of salvation; that is, established on the glory of God and Christ, in opposition to all the forms and disguises of self-glory.
5. The sorites, tribulation worketh constancy, &c. (Rom_5:3-5), represents tribulation also as a spiritual experience. Therefore a merely external suffering, such as any body may have, is not meant thereby, but the cross as a consequence of Christian faith. Faith leads into tribulation, because, as peace with God, it leads into conflict with the kingdom of darkness, and also with sin in ourselves, because it endows the ordinary suffering of this life with a spiritual character. Such a bearing of the cross looks to constancy, or steadfastness (passive patientia has active patientia as a result); steadfastness reaches its preliminary issue, as well as its final issue, in approval (experience); approval converts hope to confident assurance, which cannot deceive, because it is itself the prophecy of approaching glory. The Apostle’s sorites describes a chain of blessed experiences, which cannot be broken unless the first links to approval are rendered brittle by insincerity, but whose strength increases from link to link to that unconquerable assurance of hope.
6. The elder dogmatics, especially the Reformed, have made prominent the doctrine of approval and perseverance in grace; or, what is the same, the doctrine of sealing. They made sealing follow justification. If this great truth had been carefully guarded, the controversy between the Lutheran and Reformed theology, as to whether a pardoned person can fall from grace, could have been regarded as a mere question of words, to be solved by the further inquiry as to whether the question concerns Christians before, or after, they are sealed. The heart’s experience of justification must be put to proof, in which it becomes the historically established experience of life. Steadfastness in such proofs results inwardly in sealing by the Holy Spirit (2Ti_2:19; Rev_7:3; Rev_9:4; Eph_1:13; Eph_4:30), and outwardly in the establishment of the Christian in the character of his new nature (δοκιμή). The nomen et omen indelebile of baptism, confirmation, and ordination, becomes the real character indelebilis only by approval, or sealing. This is ethically connected with the fact that, by the test of tribulation and steadfastness, a purifying process has taken place, by which a separation of the most combustible material has been effected.
7. The way which Christians pursue with Christ goes downward, according to appearance, and often according to feeling; but it goes upward, according to internal operation and experience. This occurs in a threefold relation: (1) Since all the high standpoints of worldly consciousness are without support, the Christian’s position in the fellowship of Christ, who is above, is established as his second nature. (2) The persevering fellowship in the historical ignominy of Christ, is fellowship in the historical honor which shall be received in the harvest of the world. (3) There is forming a dynamical nature of light and heat of the inner man, which, by its impulsive and sustaining power, as well as by the still stronger upward attraction, ascends to the kingdom of glory.
8. The experience of the love of God in Christ for us is changed, with its joy, into pure reciprocal love; and from the complete life of love of this new birth there arises pure salvation, which, in this world, is divided into hope and patience. See Rom_8:24-25; 1 John 3.
9. As the Holy Spirit caused the birth of Christ, so does He cause the new birth of Christians; Rom_5:5.
10. The contemplation of the love of God for us, which was revealed in the death of Jesus, in His dying for us (Rom_5:8), remains the ground of the life of love of believers. See Philippi, p. 166. On the ὑπέρ, see Meyer, p. 150. [P. 189 f., fourth edition. Meyer maintains here that in all the passages which treat of the object of the death of Christ (as Luk_22:19-20; Rom_8:32; Rom_14:15, &c.), the prepositions ὑπέρ and περί mean in commodum, for the benefit of, and must not be confounded with ἀντί, loco, instead of, which Paul never uses (but Christ Himself uses it, Mat_20:28, δοῦναι τὴν ψυκὴναὑτοῦ λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν, comp. Mar_10:45, λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν); but that Paul nevertheless teaches a satisfactio vicaria, by representing Christ’s death as a propitiatory sin-offering, Rom_3:25; Eph_5:2, &c.—P. S.]
11. After the Apostle has represented the sorites of the Christian’s subjective certainty of salvation (Rom_5:1-5), he makes a sorites of his objective certainty of salvation (Rom_5:6-11). The thesis from which he proceeds is the fact that, among men, there is scarcely one who will die for a righteous man, though perhaps one would die for the good man (see the Exeg. Notes; comp. Tholuck, p. 208). The sentence must be enlarged by the farther definition: No one would die for the ungodly, or for his enemy; but God has performed this miracle of love in the death of Christ. For Christ died for us when we were, in a negative view, incapable, and, in a positive view, even ungodly. Therefore the objective certainty of salvation is established in the following conclusions: (1) We were sinners, debtors, for whom Christ died; much more shall we, since we are justified and reconciled, be preserved from the wrath to come. (2) The death of the Son of God has overcome our enmity, and reconciled us; much more shall His life perfectly redeem us as reconciled until the consummation. (3) Since we have obtained reconciliation, we are happy even now in the triumphant joy that God is our God.
12. On the difference between the ἱλασμὁς and the καταλλαγὴ, see the Exeg. Notes [p. 166].
[Bishop Horsley (Serm. on Rom_4:25) on the atonement and reconciliation: “Those who speak of the wrath of God as appeased by Christ’s sufferings, speak, it must be confessed, a figurative language. The Scriptures speak figuratively when they ascribe wrath to God. The Divine nature is insusceptible of the perturbations of passion, and, when it is said that God is angry, it is a figure, which conveys this useful warning to mankind, that God will be determined by His wisdom, and by His providential care of His creation, to deal with the wicked, as a prince in anger deals with rebellious subjects. It is an extension of the figure when it is said that God’s wrath is appeased by the sufferings of Christ. It is not to be supposed that the sins of men excite in God an appetite of vengeance, which could not be diverted from its purpose of punishment till it had found its gratification in the sufferings of a righteous person. This, indeed, were a view of our redemption founded on a false and unworthy notion of the Divine character. But nothing hinders but that the sufferings of Christ, which could only, in a figurative sense, be an appeasement or satisfaction of God’s wrath, might be, in the most literal meaning of the words, a satisfaction to His justice. It is easy to understand that the interests of God’s government, the peace and order of the great kingdom, over which He rules the whole world of moral agents, might require that His disapprobation of sin should be solemnly declared and testified in His manner of forgiving it. It is easy to understand that the exaction of vicarious sufferings on the part of Him, who undertook to be the intercessor for a rebelliobus race, amounted to such a declaration. These sufferings, by which the end of punishment might be answered, being once sustained, it is easy to perceive that the same principle of wisdom, the same providential care of His creation, which must have determined the Deity to inflict punishment, had no atonement been made, would now determine Him to spare. Thus, to speak figuratively, His anger was appeased; but His justice was literally satisfied, and the sins of men, no longer calling for punishment, when the ends of punishment were secured, were literally expiated. The person sustaining the suferings, in consideration of which the guilit of others may, consistently with the principles of good policy, be remitted, was, in the literal sense of the word—so literally, as no other victim ever was—a sacrifice, and His blood shed for the remission of sin was literally the matter of expiation.”]
13. This section contains, in narrow compass, a sketch of the whole development of Christian salvation, in which its principial perfection34 is made emphatic at the beginning as well as at the conclusion, in order that the peripherical imperfection of the state of faith in this world may not be regarded in an Ebionitic way as a principial one. We must observe that, in Romans 8., this designation is further elaborated under a new point of view, and that there, too, the subjective and objective certainty of salvation can be distinguished.
14. The idea of the real worship of God reappears definitely here in the beginning as well as at the end of the section.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The fruits of the righteousness of faith. They are: 1. Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom_5:1); 2. Hope of future glory in the tribulations of the present time (Rom_5:2-5); 3. Confidence of salvation established on the love of God for us as made known in the propitiatory death of Christ (Rom_5:6-11).—Peace with God: 1. In what does it consist? 2. By whom do we obtain it? (Rom_5:1).—The peace of heart with God is the source of all other peace: 1. In homes; 2. In churches; 3. In nations.—By Christ we have obtained access to the grace of justification. In this are comprised: 1. A strong consolation (we are no more rejected from God’s face; the door is opened; we can come in); 2. A serious admonition (we should not disregard this access, but make use of it; and 3. We should often come with all our burdens.).—In what should and can we glory as Christians? 1. In the future glory which God shall give; 2. But also in the tribulations which He sends us (Rom_5:2-5); 3. In God Himself as our God.—Why should we, as Christians, glory also in tribulations? Because we know: 1. That tribulation worketh patience (endurance); 2. Patience (endurance) worketh experience (strictly, approval); comp. 2Co_2:9; 2Co_9:13; Jam_1:3); 3. Experience (approval) worketh hope; and 4. Hope maketh not ashamed (Rom_5:2-5).—Why does Christian hope prevent shame? 1. Because it is not a false hope; but, 2. It has its ground in the love of God, which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us (Rom_5:5).—In what respect does God commend (prove) His love toward us? 1. In Christ’s dying at the appointed time for us; 2. But still more in His dying for us when we were yet sinners (Rom_5:6-8).—It is noble to die for a benefactor, but it is divine to die for evil-doers (Rom_5:7).—The importance of Christ’s life and death for men: 1. His death brings reconciliation when we are enemies; 2. His life brings salvation when we are reconciled (Rom_5:9-11).—Christ’s life our salvation (Rom_5:10).—Salvation by the life of Christ is necessary for Christians of the present time.—Let us speak of Christ’s death, but let us also speak continually of His life (Rom_5:10).
Luther: One has experience when he has been well tempted, and can therefore speak of it as having been in it himself (Rom_5:4).—God is our God, and we are His people, and we have all good things in common from Him and with Him, in all confidence (Rom_5:11).
Starke: Rom_5:2. Future glory is connected with justification by an indissoluble chain; Rom_8:18; Rom_8:30; Rom_8:32.
Rom_5:2. Nothing can make so happy as the hope of the incorruptible, undefiled, and imperishable inheritance which is reserved in heaven; 1Pe_1:4.
Rom_5:5. He who has the Holy Spirit, is the only one who is certain that God’s love is shed abroad in his heart.
Rom_5:10. The death of Christ is the principal agency toward our reconciliation; but His resurrection is the seal and assurance that we are truly reconciled to God.
Rom_5:10. Christ’s resurrection is the ark of life and royal city of our salvation.
Rom_5:11. No one can glory in God but he who has Christ; for He is the way by which we come to the enjoyment of God; Joh_14:6. He, therefore, who does not have Him, is also without God in the world; Eph_2:12.—Hedinger: To be certain of the forgiveness of sin, is the fountain of all joy and consolation (Rom_5:1).—Beware of the hypocrite’s hope, which destroys! The believer clings to God’s love in Christ as an anchor to the rock; Heb_6:19. Would to God we understood this well! If we did, nothing could grieve and afflict us (Rom_5:5).—A Christian must regard the suffering of Christ not only as a mirror of wrath, but also as a mirror of love (Rom_5:8).—What a gloty! God’s child, and in good favor with Him! How incomprehensible, how glorious, and how blessed! (Rom_5:11).—Cramer: If we are justified by faith, we have free access to God, so that we do not need any patron or saint to prepare the way for us (Rom_5:2).—The suffering of Christians is their glory; for they suffer without guilt, and for Christ’s glory (Rom_5:3).—Osiander: The cross and tribulation make us humble and patient; they are therefore the most precious gems and best ornament of the children of God (Rom_5:3).—Nova Bibl. Tub.: Oh, how blessed is the cross! Though it pain the flesh, it brings eternal good. We are better purified by it, than gold is by fire; our hope is strengthened, and the love of God is shed abroad in the heart (Rom_5:5).—Love is rare among men, yet there are remarkable examples of some who have given up their lives for their fellow-citizens and brethren. But there is no comparison between all this and the love of Christ (Rom_5:7).—Who would not love in return a God so full of love, and prefer fellowship with Him to that of all others? (Rom_5:10).
Gerlach: Justification by faith not only gives free access to God’s grace at the present time, but it also confers the certainty of future glory (Rom_5:2).—In justification the believer receives the first germ of the whole new life. But since the germ grows into a tree, and the tree ever becomes more firmly rooted amid storms, all that the believer had at the beginning is renewed and established at every new stage of trial (Rom_5:5).—Since God has performed for sinners and enemies the greatest service, He will certainly not leave unfinished for the reconciled and righteous the much smaller remaining part of His work (Rom_5:9).—The Apostle begins to indicate here what he treats more at length in chap. vi.: Faith so transposes us into Christ, that His life, death, resurrection, and glory, become ours. Each circumstance from His history becomes the history of mankind believing in Him, as well as of each individual believer (Rom_5:10).
Lisco: The saving fruits of the righteousness acquired by faith in Jesus Christ (Rom_5:1-11).—The fruit of this righteousness (Rom_5:1-5).—The most certain sign of the love of God toward us just mentioned, is the redemption made by Christ (Rom_5:6-8).—The blessed result of this love of God and Christ, is the certain hope of the eternal duration of this love, and, finally, of our attainment of glory (Rom_5:9-11).
Heubner: Paul here strikes the note of the triumphal song of the justified. Listen: His readers should participate in his joy; we are reconciled, we are pardoned.—Without justification, there is no joy, no love, no happiness in life; without it, nothing can make us happy—neither nature, nor the love of men (Rom_5:1).—Grace is prepared, and offered to all. Many accept it, but all do not remain steadfast (Rom_5:2).—He on whom God has placed many burdens, has much entrusted to him; God has made him an object of distinction. Therefore, the higher and more joyous the Christian’s spirit is in suffering, the greater will be the increase of his joy and strength in conflict (Rom_5:3).—What influence does suffering exert on the Christian? (Rom_5:3).—The sacred hope of the Christian maketh not ashamed; it is holy in its object and ground.—Faith in the love of God is the ground of all hope (Rom_5:5).—The helplessness of the unimproved heart is followed by the saddest results of sin; just as severe sickness is succeeded by weakness (Rom_5:6).—God’s holy love of His enemies (Rom_5:8).—The greatest misery of a created being, is, to bear the wrath of God (Rom_5:9).—God’s love of us is a prevenient love (Rom_5:10)—Christ’s life is the ground of our salvation (Rom_5:10).
Besser: The salvation of those who are justified by faith. It is: 1. A present salvation; 2. Also a future one (Rom_5:1-11).—Tribulation is praiseworthy, because the evergreen of hope is sprinkled with the tears of tribulation (Rom_5:3-5).—God’s wrath is not human; God is love, and Divine wrath is connected with the love which takes no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but is an ardent, compassionate desire to save the sinner. Reconciliation is the execution of this loving determination of God by means of the atonement through the death of His Son (Rom_5:10).—God unites in the Church with pardoned sinners—who have faith in Jesus, and glory in God as their God—more intimately and gloriously than in Paradise with innocent man (Rom_5:11).
Schleiermacher, on Rom_5:7-8 : The death of Christ is the highest glorification of God’s love toward us. 1. God imposed death on our Redeemer as the most perfect proof of obedience; 2. Many are justified by this obedience.
Spener: 1. The fruits of justification: (a.) Peace; (b.) Access to God; (c.) The joy of future hope; (d.) Victory in tribulation and the cross; (e.) The gift of the Holy Ghost. 2. The causes of justification (Rom_5:1-11).
[Burkitt: One grace generates and begets another; graces have a generation one from another, though they all have one generation from the Spirit of God.—He that does not seek reconciliation with God, is an enemy of his soul; and he that rejoices not in that reconciliation, is an enemy to his own comfort.—Logan (sermon on Jesus Christ Dying for Sinners, Rom_5:7-8): The greatest trial and exercise of virtue is when an innocent man submits to the imputation of a crime, that others may be free from the punishment. This Christ did. He was betrayed like an impostor by one of His own disciples, apprehended like a robber by a band of soldiers, led like a malefactor through the streets of Jerusalem, nailed like a murderer to the accursed tree, and, in the sight of all Israel, died the death of a traitor and a slave, that he might atone for the real guilt of men.—Comp. Comm.: He that puts himself to the charge of purchasing our salvation, will not decline the trouble of applying it.—Hodge: As the love of God in the gift of His Son, and the love of Christ in dying for us, are the peculiar characteristics of the gospel, no one can be a true Christian on whom these truths do not exert a governing influence.—Annot. Paragraph Bible: God establishes His love toward man by demonstration; it is a love worthy of Himself, and which none but Himself can feel.
Comp. Chrysostom, De Gloria in Tribulationibus; Archbishop Usher, Four Sermons, Works, vol. xiii. 226; John Howe, Influence of Hope, Works, vol. vi. 277; Bishop Mant, The Love of God the Motive to Man’s Salvation, Sermons, vol. i.115; Jonathan Edwards, Men naturally God’s Enemies, Works, vol. ii. 130.—On the Section Rom_5:1-5, see Nath. Hornes, The Bracelet of Pearl of Sanctifying Graces, Works, 207; Richard Baxter, Short Meditations, Works, vol. xviii. 503; C. Simeon, Benefits arising from a Justifying Faith, Works, vol. xv. 116; J. Morgan, The Hidden Life Disclosed in Rom_5:1-5, an Exposition, Belfast, 1856.—J. F. H.]
Footnotes:
[1]Rom_5:1.—[The reading ἕκωμεν (subjunctive, with a hortatory sense) is strongly attested by א1. A. B1. C. D. K. L., many cursives and versions (including Syriac and Vulgate), also by many fathers; adopted by Lachmann (in the margin), Scholz, Fritzsche, Alford (5th ed.). This array of authorities would compel us to adopt it instead of ἔκομεν (Rec., אcor. B2. F.), were it not for the following considerations: 1. The early transcribers frequently interchanged ο and ω. 2. The change having been made, it would be retained by the fathers, since it “indicates the incipient darkening of the doctrine of the righteousness of faith” (Lange). 3. The hortatory meaning is not in keeping with the context. Even Alford, after adopting the subjunctive, and alleging that it can only have the force of the imperative, denies this meaning. An exhortation on a new subject just here, would introduce a foreign element (Meyer). These reasons have been deemed, by many of the best editors, sufficient to outweigh the preponderant MSS. authority. Comp. the Exeg. Notes.—R.]
[2]Rom_5:2.—[The perfect ἐσκήκαμεν is rendered erlangt haben by Lange; have had is the literal meaning, implying continued possession. We obtained (Amer. Bible Union) is open to the objection urged in Exeg. Notes. The article should be retained with access, as conveying a slight emphasis.—R.]
[3]Rom_5:2.—[Lange rejects τῇ πίστει (Rec., א1. C. K. L., many versions). It is not found in B. D. F. G., and is rejected by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Ewald, Alford. Meyer retains it, deeming it superfluous after Rom_5:1; but for that very reason likely to be omitted. A further variation, ὲν τῆ πίστει, increases the probability of its genuineness, since ἐν might readily be repeated from the preceding ἐσκήκαμεν. It may be regarded as doubtful, but we are scarcely warranted in rejecting it.—R.]
[4]Rom_5:2.—[Triumph is not only a more literal rendering of καυκώμεθα, but can be retained throughout, whereever the verb occurs. The connection is with have had. If necessary, a semicolon after stand would indicate this.—R.]
[5]Rom_5:2.—[Lange’s view of this passage requires the insertion of the article, which is not found in the Greek. See Exeg. Notes.—R.]
[6]Rom_5:3.—[Rec.: καυκώμεθα א1. A. D. F. K. Alford considers this a mechanical repetition from Rom_5:2, and reads καυκώμενοι (B. C.), but the other reading is to be preferred.—R.]
[7]Rom_5:3.—[Ὑπομονή Standhaftigkeit (Lange); endurance (Alford); patient endurance (Wordsworth)· Ansdauer, perseverantia (Meyer). The idea of patience is implied, but the result is referred to here.—R.]
[8]Rom_5:4.—[Approval is certainly preferable to experience; and yet it is not altogether satisfactory. Lange, Meyer: Bewährung; Wordsworth: proof; Alford, Amer. Bible Union, as above.—R.]
[9]Rom_5:6.—[The text is disputed at two points in this clause. Rec., with א. A. C. D1.3. K., and some fathers, read ἕτι γάρ; which is adopted by most modern editors. B. (followed by Alford) reads εἴγε, however. The MSS. authority for the former is so strong, that it would be adopted without hesitation, were not the decision complicated by another variation, viz., the insertion and omission of a second ἔτι after ἀσθενῶν. The authority for it (א. A. B. C. D1. F.) is even stronger than for the first. But this repetition has been deemed unnecessary, and many critical editors have therefore rejected the second ἔτι. (So Rec., Meyer, Lange apparently.) The insertion is explained as a displacement growing out of the fact, that an ecclesiastical portion began with Χριστὸς κ.τ.λ. But the uncial authority is too strong to warrant its rejection. Alford justly remarks: “We must either repeat ἔτι, … or adopt the reading of B.” He takes the latter alternative; it seems safer, with Griesbach, Lachmann, Wordsworth, to take the former. In that case, ἔτι may either be regarded as repeated for emphasis (see Exeg. Notes,) or Wordsworth’s view be adopted: Besides, when we were yet weak. The former is preferable.—R.]
[10]Rom_5:8.—[Ὁθεός is wanting in B. Its position varies in other MSS. א. A. C. K. insert it after εἰς ἡμᾶς (so Rec.); D. F. L. before (so Tischendorf, Meyer). Alford rejects it, mainly on account of this variation in position. It is far more likely to have been omitted, because it was thought that Christ should be the subject. The most probable view is, that the Apostle intended to emphasize the fact that God thus showed His (εἁυτοῦ) love; hence the position at the end of the clause. This not being understood, it was moved forward and then rejected.—R.]
[11]Rom_5:9.—[Literally: having been then justified. The E. V. means to convey this thought. It should be noticed that ἐν follows (E. V., by). The idea of instrumentality is not prominent; the sense seems to be pregnant. So also in Rom_5:10 : ἐν τῆ ζωῆ, by his life.—R.]
[12]Rom_5:10.—[The parallelism is marred in the E. V.—R.]
[13]Rom_5:11.—[Rec.: καυκώμεθα, poorly attested. Nearly all MSS. read καυκώμενουι, which is adopted by modern critical editors. On the meaning, and for justification of the above emendation, see Exeg. Notes.—R.]
[14]Rom_5:11.—[Atonement is a correct rendering etymologically, but not theologically. Reconciliation is preferable also on the ground that it corresponds with reconcile (Rom_5:10), as the Greek noun does with the preceding verb.—R.]
[15][See Text. Note1. The Sinaitic MS. reads ΕΧΩ̊ΜΕΝ, the small ο the top of ω being a correction by a later hand, though this correction may possibly have been taken from an older MS. Tischendorf, in his recent edition of the Vatican MS., credits the correction ἔκομεν to B3., instead of B2., as is done by Alford, Meyer, and others. Dr. Hodge, who pays little or no attention to the different readings, and ignores Cod. Sin. altogether, although it was published two years before the revised edition of his Comm. on Romans, incorrectly says (p 205) that “the external authorities are nearly equally divided” between ἔκομεν and ἔκωμεν. Alford, in the 5th ed., has a long note and calls this “the crucial instance of overpowering diplomatic authority compelling us to adopt a reading against which our subjective feelings rebel. Every internal consideration tends to impugn it.” Retaining ἔκωμεν in the text (with Lachmann and Tregelles), he gives it up in the notes. Forbes very strenuously contends for ἔκωμεν, and consistently takes also κανκώμεθα in the hortative sense.—P. S.]
[16][Rom_12:18 refers to peace with men (like the famous sentence in Gen. Grant’s letter of acceptance of the nomination for the Presidency: Let us have peace).—P. S.]
[17][By Pape (Lex.) and Meyer, who quotes passages from Xenophon, Thucydides, Plutarch, &c., and explains: “Wir haben Durch Christum die Hinzuführung zu der Gnade, u. s. w., gehabt, dadurch nämlich dass Er selbst (1Pe_3:18) vermöge seines den Zorn Gottes tilgenden Sühnopfers unser προζαγωγεύς geworden ist, oder, wie es Chrys. treffend ausdrück: μακπὰν ὄντας προςήγαγε.” Comp. Harless (p. 251) and Braune, on Eph_2:18. Chrysostom distinguishes, Eph_2:18, προζαγωγή and πρόζοδος: οὐκ εἶπενπ ρόζοδον, ἀλλὰ προζαγωγήν. But πρόζοδος, in classic Greek, has both the active and passive meaning. Hesychius defines προσαγωγν́: “προζέλευσις, recte: accessio, nempe ad deorum aras, supplicatio.” The word occurs only three times in the New Testament—here, and Eph_2:18; Eph_3:12, where the intransitive meaning, access, is the most natural.—P. S.]
[18][This is not necessary, τῇ πίστει and ἐν τῇ πίστει, whether genuine or not, can be taken as explanatory of the method of access to the throne of grace. The phrase “faith on grace” nowhere occurs in the Bible.—P. S.]
[19][ “Demeurer ferme signifie combattre courageusement.”—P. S.]
[20][ “ … ut firma stabilisque salus nobis maneat: quo significat, perseverantiam non in virtute industriave nostra, sed in Christo fundatam esse.” So also Philippi (feststehen, bleibend verharren), and Hodge: “We are firmly and immovably established.” Comp. Joh_8:44, where it is said of Satan that he stood not (οὐκ ἕστηκεν) in the truth; 1Co_15:1; 2Co_1:24.—P. S.]
[21][So also Philippi: “ἐπ̓ ἐλπίδι, propter spem. ἐπί mit dem Dative dient bei den Verbis der Affecte zur Angabe des Grundes. So γελᾷ ν, μέγα φρονεῖν, μαίνεσθα ι, ἀγανακτεῖν ἐπίτινι.”—P. S.]
[22][The reading of the Vulgate: gloriæ filiorum Dei, is, according to Meyer, a gloss which admirably hits the sense. But δόξα θεοῦ is more expressive in this connection. It is the glory which God Himself has (gen. possessionis), and in which believers shall once share; comp. Joh_17:22; 1Th_2:12; Rev_21:11; 1Jn_3:2.—P. S.]
[23][We add the comments of Hodge “Afflictions themselves are to the Christian a ground of glorying; he feels them to be an honor and a blessing. This is a sentiment often expressed in the word of God. Our Lord says: ‘Blessed are they who mourn;’ ‘Blessed are the persecuted;’ ‘Blessed are ye when men shall revile you.’ He calls on His suffering disciples to rejoice and be exceeding glad when they are afflicted; Mat_5:4; Mat_5:10-12. The apostles departed from the Jewish council, ‘rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ’s name;’ Act_5:41. Peter calls upon Christians to rejoice when they are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, and pronounces them happy when they are reproached for His sake; 1Pe_4:13-14. And Paul says: ‘Most gladly therefore will I glory in (on account of) my infirmities’ (i.e., my sufferings). ‘I take pleasure,’ he says, ‘in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake;’ 2Co_12:10-11. This is not irrational or fanatical. Christians do not glory in suffering, as such, or for its own sake, but as the Bible teaches: 1. Because they consider it an honor to suffer for Christ. 2. Because they rejoice in being the occasion of manifesting His power in their support and deliverance; and, 3. Because suffering is made the means of their own sanctification and preparation for usefulness, here, and for heaven hereafter. The last of these reasons is that to which the Apostle refers in the context.”—P. S.]
[24][Similarly Olshausen: “Die Gottesliebe zum Menschen, die aber in ihm die Gegenliebe weckt (1Jn_4:19), und zwar nicht die Gegenliebe mit den bloss natürlichen Kräften, sondern mit den höheren Kräften des göttlichen Geistes.” Forbes; “The love here spoken of is not God’s love, as merely outwardly shown to us, but as shed abroad in our hearts as a gift, and it is placed in connection with other Christian graces—patience and hope.”—P. S.]
[25][Meyer: “Der Begriff des Reichlichen liegt schon in der sinnlichen Vorstellung des Ausschüttens, kann aber auch wie Tit_3:6 noch besonders ausgedrückt werden.”—P. S.]
[26][Or three, rather; for the words have also been connected by some with ἕτι = ἕτι τότε, adhuc eo tempore, at the time of our weakness.—P. S.]
[27][Jerome, Ep. 121 ad Algas., mentions five explanations; Tholuck.—P. S.]
[28][Calvin: ”Rarissimum sane inter homines exemplum exstat, ut pro justo quis mori sustineat: quamquam illad nonnunquam accidere possit.” The exception establishes the rule. Fritzsche, Hofmann (in the second edition of his Schrifbeweis, Rom_2:1, p. 348), and Meyer (4th ed.) have returned to this view. In the 1st ed. (which Hodge, p. 214, seems alone to have consulted), Meyer took τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, on account of the article, as neuter (as did Jerome, Erasmus, Luther, Melanchthon, Rückert, and Hofmann in the first edition of his Schriftbeweis), and rendered the latter clause of the verse interrogatively: “denn wer wagt’s auch leichtlich für das Gute zu sterben?—P. S.]
[29][Tholuck (and Stuart after him) quotes a number of passages from the classics and the Talmud, which to my mind have no force at all.—P. S.]
[30][So also Hodge: ”It is an argument a fortiori. If the greater benefit has been bestowed, the less will not be withheld. If Christ has died for His enemies, He will surely save His friends.”—P. S.]
[31][The original, by mistake, mentions here Tholuck, who holds the opposite view, at least in the fifth and last edition of his Comm., p. 210, and says that the ὀργή θεοῦ necessarily implies also an ἕκθρα θεοῦ, although both are to be taken in a relative sense only, as the wrath and enmity of a father toward his children. He quotes the sentence of Hugo of St. Victor: ”Non quia reconciliavit amavit, sed quia amavit reconciliavit.”—P. S.]
[32][And also the note of Fritzsche on Rom_5:10. Tittmann, De Synon. N. T., i. 102 (approved by Robinson sub καταλάσσω), makes διαλάττειν to mean “efficere ut quæ fuit inimicitia mutua, ea esse desinat,” and καταλάττειν, “facere ut alter inimicum animum deponat.” This distinction is arbitrary and fanciful. Comp. the preceding remarks.—P. S.]
[33][In vol. iii, p. 858, of his work on Dogmatics, Dr. Lange distinguishes between καταλλαγή as belonging to the prophetical, ιλασμός to the priestly, and ἀπολύτρωσις to the kingly office of Christ.—P. S.]
[34][Principielle Vollkommenheit, perfection as a principle. The word principial (from principium), in the sense of initial, elementary, fundamental, though now obsolete, is used by Bacon. In German, the word is almost indispensable.—P. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–5 By whom also we have--"have had"
By whom also we have--"have had"
access by faith into this grace--favor with God.
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wherein we stand--that is "To that same faith which first gave us 'peace with God' we owe our introduction into that permanent standing in the favor of God which the justified enjoy." As it is difficult to distinguish this from the peace first mentioned, we regard it as merely an additional phase of the same [MEYER, PHILIPPI, MEHRING], rather than something new [BEZA, THOLUCK, HODGE].
and rejoice--"glory," "boast," "triumph"--"rejoice" is not strong enough.
in hope of the glory of God--On "hope," see on Rom 5:4.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Faith-Remedy illustrated.
Faith-Remedy illustrated.
1. In its progressive work in the human soul.
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Justification is contemplated as a condition of things within the soul, (Rom_5:1-5,) and as a gracious and sure result of Christ’s death, (Rom_5:6-11.) The passage Rom_5:1-5 describes the justified state as a state of reconciliation, access, and confident hope.
1. Therefore—As the result from this statement of justification, (Rom_4:23-25.)
Peace with God—The removal of God’s just wrath from us by our being brought from a state of condemnation to justification. That it is not the removal of our enmity toward God so much as his condemnation and penal justice toward us is manifest from the whole discussion. The argument is that man is guilty, under the curse of the law, the wrath of God revealed against him. Justification is the removal of guilt, curse, and wrath from upon him, and his being held as acquitted and righteous. (Compare particularly Rom_1:18; Rom_1:32; Rom_2:2-16.)
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Ch. Rom_5:1-11. The security and happiness of the state…
Ch. Rom_5:1-11. The security and happiness of the state of Justification; its basis being the Divine Love
1. Therefore being justified] Here opens a leading section. The preliminaries are now over:—The need of Justification is established; and its equal terms for Jew and Greek; and the fact that Faith is its one appointed condition; and the nature and actings of faith, specially as in Abraham’s example. We now come to a fuller statement of some important details, which will lead up to a view of the effects of faith in the character and life of the justified.
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being justified] An aorist. The time-reference is probably to the definite crisis of acceptance in each individual case; not to the ideal justification just expounded (Rom_4:25). Because the words “by faith” point here to our acceptance of the Lord’s work.
we have peace] The Gr. has an important and strongly supported various reading: “Let us have peace.” Without attempting to discuss the documentary evidence here, we merely state the case thus:—There is, on the whole, a greater weight of MSS. and ancient Versions in favour of “let us have.” But on the other hand there is a greater weight of internal evidence for “we have.” In other words, “we have” exactly fits info the context; “let us have” is foreign to it. The whole context is one not of exhortation, but of dogmatic assertion:—“we have access;” “we rejoice;” “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts;” “we shall be saved;” “we are reconciled;” “we have received the reconciliation.”—How then can we account for the “Let us have”? Probably, by early failures to grasp the complex but consistent argument of the whole long context, and the inevitable tendency due to such misapprehension to substitute aspiration or exhortation for (what the text speaks of) a present possession.—It is an obviously right principle, though calling for most cautious application, that no amount of MS. evidence ought ever to force on us a reading which mars the context.—A single stroke in the Gr. MSS. makes the only visible difference between the readings.
peace with God] Lit. towards God. That is, “in view of Him, as regards Him, we possess the security and calm of acceptance.” Practically the phrase thus = “He has admitted us to peace;” “He is at peace with us.” The whole previous argument shews that His reconciliation to us, not ours to Him, is the main point; in other words, the justice of forgiveness on God’s part, not the yielding of the will on man’s part, which latter, though an all-important thing, is not directly in view now.—Much has been said against the phrase “God’s reconciliation to us,” as if it made Him out to be a hostile Power. But the justice of the words is seen when we (like St Paul here) look on Him as on the Judge. As Creator and Father, He loves the sinner; as Judge, He must condemn him—if it were not for His own gift of a Propitiation. And the judge who sentences a criminal is, however personally kind, judicially hostile. And again, the judge who for a good cause removes the sentence is then judicially reconciled to the accused, though he may personally need no reconciliation of feeling.—Scripture plainly reveals that the God of Love proclaims “no peace” to the impenitent. Therefore when He “speaks peace” there is a change, not in His benevolence but in His judicial attitude: in other words, reconciliation.—For instructive parallels where the word “peace” occurs see Isa_53:5; Luk_2:14; Luk_19:38; Heb_13:20; 2Pe_3:14.
through our Lord Jesus Christ] The sacred Propitiation, provided and accepted by the loving and righteous Father; once offered, and continuously (“we have”) availing.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–5 (1) Being justified.—The present chapter is thus linked on…
(1) Being justified.—The present chapter is thus linked on to the last. Christ was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification. “Being justified then,” &c. This opening has a wonderful beauty which centres in the Christian idea of peace. After all the gloomy retrospect which fills the preceding chapters, the clouds break, and light steals gently over the scene. Nor is it merely the subsidence of storm, but an ardent and eager hope that now awakens, and looks forward to a glorious future.
We have.—A decided preponderance of MSS. authority compels us to read here, “Let us have,” though the older reading would seem to make the best sense. A hortatory element is introduced into the passage, which does not seem quite properly or naturally to belong to it. It is just possible that there may have been a very early error of the copyist, afterwards rightly corrected (in the two oldest MSS., Vat. and Sin., the reading of the Authorised version appears as a correction) by conjecture. On the other hand, it is too much always to assume that a writer really used the expression which it seems to us most natural that he should have used. “Let us have” would mean “Let us enter into and possess.”
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Peace.—The state of reconciliation with God, with all that blissful sense of composure and harmony which flows from such a condition. “Peace” is the special legacy bequeathed by Jesus to His disciples (Joh_14:27; Joh_16:33); it is also the word used, with deep significance, after miracles of healing, attended with forgiveness (Mar_5:34; Luk_7:50). Boswell notes a remark of Johnson’s upon this word. “He repeated to Mr. Langton, with great energy in the Greek, our Saviour’s gracious expression concerning the forgiveness of Mary Magdalene: ‘Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace’ (Luk_7:50). He said, ‘The manner of this dismission is exceedingly affecting’” (Life of Johnson, ch. 4, under the date 1780). For other illustrations of this supreme and unique phase of the Christian life, we may turn to the hymns of Cowper, especially those stanzas commencing “Sometimes a light surprises,” “So shall my walk be close with God,” “Fierce passions discompose the mind,” “There if Thy Spirit touch the soul”; or to some of the descriptions in the Pilgrim’s Progress.
V.
(1-11) A description of the serene and blissful state which the sense of justification brings. Faith brings justification; justification brings (let us see that it does bring) peace—peace with God, through the mediation of Jesus. To that mediation it is that the Christian owes his state of grace or acceptance in the present, and his triumphant hope of glory in the future. Nay, the triumph begins now. It begins even with tribulation, for tribulation leads by gradual stages to that tried and approved constancy which is a virtue most nearly allied to hope. Such hope does not deceive. It is grounded upon the consciousness of justifying love assured to us by the wonderful sacrifice of the death of Christ. The one great and difficult step was that which reconciled sinful man to God; the completion of the process of his salvation follows by easy sequence. Knowing this our consciousness just spoken of takes a glow of triumph.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Vers. 1-21. (6) The results of the revelation of…
Vers. 1-21. (6) The results of the revelation of the righteousness of God, as affecting
(a) the consciousness and hopes of believers;
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(b) the position of mankind before God.
Vers. 1-11. (a) As to the consciousness of individual believers.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Instead of the ecomen of the Textus Receptus, an overwhelming preponderance of authority, including uncials, versions, and Fathers, supports ecwmen ("let us have"). If this be the true reading, the expression must be intended as hortatory, meaning, apparently, "Let us appreciate and realize our peace with God which we have in being justified by faith." But hortation here does not appear in keeping with what follows, in which the results of our being justified by faith are described in terms clearly, corresponding with the idea of our having peace with God. The passage as a whole is not hortatory, but descriptive, and "we have peace" comes in naturally as an initiatory statement of what is afterwards carried out. This being the case, it is a question whether an exception may not be allowed in this case to the usually sound rule of bowing to decided preponderance of authority with respect to readings. That ecwmen was an early and widely accepted reading there can be no doubt; but still it may not have been the original one, the other appearing more probable. Scrivener is of opinion that "the itacism of w for o , so familiar to all collators of Greek manuscripts, crept into some very early copy, from which it was propagated among our most venerable codices, even those from which the earliest versions were made.
Vers. 1, 2. Christian privilege.
There has been laid, in the preceding chapters, a firm foundation for the doctrines, promises, and precepts recorded here. The apostle has depicted human sin, misery, and helplessness; has shown how impossible it is that man should be justified by the works of the Law, and that his sole hope lies in the free mercy of God; and has set forth Christ Jesus crucified and raised as the ground upon which Divine favour is extended to the penitent and believing, justifying this method of procedure as in harmony with the universal administration of the Divine government. If we take, with the Revised Version, the verbs in these verses as in the imperative mood, they then contain a summons to all true Christians to appropriate the spiritual privileges secured to them by the Author of eternal salvation.
I We have here a STATEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN"S POSITION.
1. What is it? Justification; a state of acceptance with God, who, for Christ"s sake, regards and treats the believer in Jesus as righteous, and not as guilty. Until the conscience is assured of Divine favour and forgiveness there is no solid peace.
2. Who secures it? Jesus Christ. Although Paul has already shown this at length, he refers again in both these verses to the Redeemer, to whom we owe justification, and all the blessings which follow in its train. It is through him that we "have had our introduction into this grace.
3. How is it obtained? By faith. Christ has done all that is necessary, on his part, to secure our salvation. But there is needed something upon our part. We have to receive upon the Divine terms, as a free gift, the greatest of all blessings. It is a spiritual act and attitude and exercise, indispensable to the new life.
4. By what title is it held? By that of grace; it is gratuitous. This is for our advantage; for no question is raised as to our fitness. The only question is as to God"s faithfulness; and this is not only pledged, but absolutely sure.
II We have here a REPRESENTATION OF THE CHRISTIAN"S PRESENT PRIVILEGE, "We have," says the apostle," or rather, "let us have peace with God.
1. This is the peace of submission. The sinner is at enmity with God. In becoming a Christian, he lays down the weapons of rebellion, and ceases from his opposition to rightful authority It is a complete reversal of his former attitude.
2. This is also the peace of reconciliation. Concord is established. Divine rule is cordially accepted, Divine principles acknowledged, Divine precepts obeyed. The Christian takes God"s will for his will; and this is true peace.
3. It is, further, the peace of confidence. Nations are sometimes on the footing, with respect to one another, of an armed truce. Very different is the relation between the God of peace and his reconciled, obedient subjects; for they can rest in the assured enjoyment of his favour. Therefore theirs is a peace which passeth understanding, and a peace which is never to be violated.
III We have here a REVELATION OF THE CHRISTIAN"S HOPE FOR THE FUTURE. "Let us rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
1. Observe what it is we are encouraged to hope for. The expression is one which, in the nature of things, we cannot now fully comprehend. God"s glory is essentially moral and spiritual. Yet we are assured that Christians shall be changed into the same image, from glory to glory; that the Divine glory shall, in due time, be revealed in, or rather unto, us. It is a wonderful prospect, compared with which all human and terrestrial hopes are pale and dim.
2. To cherish such a hope occasions present joy. Even though our circumstances are distinguished by much that might naturally depress and dishearten us, even in suffering, weakness, or persecution, such a prospect as is here unfolded may well animate our hearts and sustain our courage. And as the realization of this hope grows nearer and nearer, it behoves the Christian to cherish this rejoicing more and more fondly and happily. Peace here, and glory hereafter, such is the Christian"s privilege! What more can he desire? What, comparable with this, can this world impart or proffer?
APPLICATION. Let those who are without peace here, and without hope for the hereafter, consider whether there is any way to these blessings save that here propounded the way of justification through faith in Christ.
HOMILIES BY C.H. IRWIN. Vers. 1, 2. Justification and its consequences.
Here side by side are the most solemn, the most terrible, and the most glorious certitudes of our religion. There is a God. With that God we are not naturally at peace. Enmity toward God means sin; and the wages of sin is death. But how to make peace with him? Blessed be his Name, Christ has died that we might live. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." Emnity and death the results of sin, to which all are condemned; for all have sinned. Reconciliation and life the results of the obedience and death of Christ. These verses put before us how this wondrous transformation may be effected; how, being dead, we may be made alive; how, being enemies of God, we may be reconciled and have peace with him.
I THE NATURE OF JUSTIFICATION. The words in the original mean, "being reckoned or, "held as just." We do not make ourselves just. Neither by this act are we made just, made perfect in holiness. That is the object of sanctification, and is not completed until we have put off this mortal. If we should say that when we are justified we are made perfectly righteous, that would be the same thing as saying that no Christian commits sin a doctrine contrary to the Word of God and to the experience of individuals. Paul complained that the evil he would not, that he did. No; justification neither implies that we make ourselves just, nor, on the other hand, that we are made just. It implies that we are reckoned just in God"s sight so far as regards the penalty of the Law. He declares that the Law is satisfied in regard to us. Manifestly, this is the grace of God. How could we satisfy the Law? "By the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be justified." "In thy sight," exclaims David, "shall no man living be justified." It is by grace alone. We can now point to the cross and say, "He died for me!" Christ"s own words are, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." This is the exact parallel of justification by faith. Just as the simple act of turning the faint and weary eyelids toward that brazen serpent restored the dying Hebrews in the wilderness, so it is still possible for all of us, even for such as are most dead in trespasses and sins, to look with the eye of faith toward Calvary and say, "Who is he that condemneth? it is Christ that died." And by that death he paid our debt. "He was delivered for our offences." This is justification. Instead of being debtors to do the whole Law, we plead its fulfilment by our Substitute, accepted by God, while we become at the same time the servants of righteousness. The Law has been fulfilled by a perfect righteousness, and the penalty of a broken Law can no longer be inflicted upon those who appropriate that righteousness as theirs. Thus justification is the free grace of God shown in a complete pardon of all our sin. We are reconciled to God by the death of his Son; we have received the Spirit of adoption, and are made heirs of eternal life. All this justification secures for us in its very nature.
II THE MEANS OR INSTRUMENT OF JUSTIFICATION. In plain and unequivocal language we are here told that by faith we must be justified in order to have peace with God. This is the grand central truth of the New Testament. If it be removed, what message does the gospel bring? "If righteousness come by the Law," says St. Paul, "then Christ is dead in vain". (Gal_2:21) Christ"s whole life of doing and suffering, and his awful death, would be a cruel superfluity the more cruel because superfluous, if by any other means fallen man could procure acceptance in God"s sight. Paul cautions the Romans against any other way of justification. "A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law". (Rom_3:28) And when the Galatians showed a tendency to depart from this doctrine, under the influence of Judaizing teachers, in the strongest terms the apostle censures them: "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel". (Gal_1:6) He addresses them as foolish; accuses them of returning to the beggarly elements; and says he is afraid lest he has bestowed upon them labour in vain. The theory of justification by works, therefore, is not one on which nothing has been said, or which has been left doubtful. It is distinctly condemned by the apostle as inconsistent with and prejudicial to the spirit of Christianity. When Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, a self- righteous Pharisee, came to Jesus by night, how did the great Master feed this hungry soul? Did he tell him to go and do some work of merit? No. The way, and the only way, to eternal life which Jesus pointed out to him was faith. If good works were of any avail, here was a man whose training had abundantly fitted him for doing good works. But from the Saviour himself he was to learn that he, a master in Israel, knew not the way into the kingdom of God. Yet are there not many professing Christians who rest their hope of an entrance into that kingdom upon their own righteousness? Are there not many the language of whose heart is, "I have kept all the commandments from my youth up; I have lived a pure life; I have been regular in attendance on the ordinances of God; I have no fear"? Such was the language of the rich young man; and Jesus said to him, "One thing thou lackest." We must guard, too, against the notion that, if we believe, our faith is the ground on which we are justified. It is hard, indeed, to see how such a notion could arise, in the face of all that the Scriptures teach against justification by works. For to make faith the ground of our justification the propter quod, to use a legal phrase is to put faith in the position of a meritorious work. And that such has no efficacy for justification has been abundantly shown. Faith is merely the means or instrument by which we lay hold on the justifying righteousness of Christ. Suppose a man owed you a sum of money, and that, in the days when imprisonment for debt was legal, he had been imprisoned till the debt should be paid. Another man comes and pays the debt. You give him a receipt, and he takes that to the prisoner, who is by it set free. How absurd it would be for any one to say that it was this debtor"s act of taking the receipt that cancelled his obligation! Precisely similar is it to say that the act by which we take hold of the great atonement is that which gives us acceptance with God. We are justified by means of our faith, and not because of it. But without that act of believing, the atonement is not ours, peace with God is not ours. By faith we lay hold of justification; by faith we take hold of the promises promises for the life that now is, and the promise of a better and unending life in the many mansions of the Father"s house. "We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (ver. 2).
III THE EFFECT OF JUSTIFICATION. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." This peace with God has a twofold aspect. It concerns God"s relation to us and our relation to God.
1. Peace with God as it affects God"s relation to us. At first God was at peace with man, until man sinned and thus became at enmity with God. And while God hates sin and must reward it, he willeth not the death of the sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wicked way and live. All through the ages, God, like a loving Father, has been seeking to bring back the wanderers, to reconcile his erring children to himself. At last he sent his own Son. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our sins." If that Propitiation has any meaning at all, it is that God"s attitude toward those who accept it is one of peace. "For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God". (Joh_16:27) Thus faith is the means by which we take hold of Christ our Substitute, our Reconciliation. And therefore, being clothed upon with his righteousness, we are received into the adoption of children. Being justified, we are restored to that blissful state of sonship toward God which made Eden the untroubled garden in which the Father came and walked at eventide. Once more God walks with us. He will be to us a Father, and we are to him as his children. What a gift this is that, weak and sinful though we are, yet we can think of God with calm assurance, being reconciled to him by the death of his Son!
2. Peace with God as it concerns our relation to God.
(1) Peace with God means peace in our own conscience. What a troubler of our peace conscience is! In the silent watches of the night its voice is loud. The darkness dims not its light; nor is its voice hushed by the din of business or the jovial clamour of revelry. But he who is justified by faith has peace of conscience within. The great ocean will not wash away the guilt of sin. But "the blood of Jesus Christ, God"s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.
(2) Peace with God means peace amid care and sorrow. Many trials of body and of mind may afflict us. But if we are justified by faith, then we have peace with God, and we know that, though no chastisement seemeth to be joyous, yet these our "light afflictions, which are but for a moment, are working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." "Well roars the storm to those that hear A deeper voice across the storm.
To those who rest their faith in Christ when in trouble, he will appear as he did to his disciples on the sea, and they will hear through the gloom a voice calling to them, "It is I: be not afraid!
(3) Peace with God means peace and security from the assaults of temptation and sin. "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus". (Php_4:7) It is a bulwark of defence round about those who are justified by faith. To them it is given to be strengthened with all might according to his glorious power. They have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. Such is the effect of being justified by faith. "Although my house be not so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure". (2Sa_23:5) Here and now peace and fellowship with God; access into grace and strength; no fear of evil in the dark valley; and afterward an abundant entrance into the presence of the King. C.H.I
HOMILIES BY T.F. LOCKYER Vers. 1, 2. The Christian privilege.
Justification by faith being assumed as now established, the Christian"s consequent attitude towards God and hope in him are next set forth.
Salvation is but begun; and the process? the goal? May there not be failure by the way, and catastrophe at last? The apostle, in the first half of this chapter, sets forth the grounds of Christian assurance. In these two verses he exhorts to peace and joyful hope.
I PEACE. Even the justified Christian may be diffident, and may sometimes regard God with dread. Many causes may contribute to this constitutional diffidence; ill health; partial and imperfect views of religious truth; intense self-consciousness; failure to realize the ideal. Paul knew it, allowed for it, prescribed for it. "Let us have peace.
1. The nature of peace toward God.
(1) A quiet mind in view of God"s new relation to us in Christ.
(2) A calm assurance of God"s help in all our growth and fight with sin.
(3) A confidence that all our relations to the world shall be rightly ordered by him.
2. The grounds of peace toward God. "Through our Lord Jesus Christ.
(1) We have found favour through him (ver. 2).
(2) We live through him.
(3) We and our interests are controlled and governed by him. So, then, peace in all things toward God, by reason of the great mediation between God and men.
II GLORYING. It is much to have peace; a quiet heart; freedom from all fear of evil. But it is better to have joy; an eager heart; the exultant anticipation of all good. This joy is ours a hope of the glory of God.
1. The hope of glory. Called God"s glory. Because he, the Perfect One, is perfectly blessed. And as we approximate towards his holiness, we shall approximate towards his happiness. He is enswathed in light; he is leading us into light. "The glory of God." More than imagination can conceive or heart desire, he is preparing for them that love him.
2. The joy of the hope. The brightness already irradiates us; the new life bounds in our veins. What vigour and hopefulness this lends to the doing of duties now! We are the heirs of a boundless future. What power to ignore the imperfectness and despair of life! Despair? with such a hope? "Let us rejoice!
Are we justified? Then it is our privilege to have peace and joy. What God has done, is doing for us. It is our duty also; for then what may we do for God! T.F.L.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Vers. 1-11. The state of the justified.
We saw in last chapter how Abraham was justified by faith alone, and how his case really covers ours. The promise of blessing through a seed, which Abraham believed so implicitly, has been fulfilled in Christ. We accordingly behove in the faithful Promiser who raised up Jesus from the dead, and we regard his death and resurrection as being a deliverance to death for our offences, and a deliverance from death for our justification. Faith enables us to draw the assurance of our justification from the resurrection of our Saviour. But now we pass under the guidance of the apostle to the consideration of the delightful state into which the justified come. And here we notice
I THE ASSURANCE THAT WE ARE THE OBJECTS OF THE DIVINE LOVE. (Vers. 1-5) By nature and by reason of our sin we are the objects of God"s righteous wrath; but when we are enabled to believe in a Saviour who died for us and rose again, we find ourselves passing out of the condemned condition into an assurance of God"s love. And the apostle here gives us the stages in the blessed process.
1. We pass into a state of peace with God. We prefer the indicative (ecomen) adopted in the Authorized Version to the subjunctive (ecwmen) adopted by the Revised Version after Westcott and Hort. For the state of peace is not some uncertainty into which we may come, but it is a state which results from justification if it has really taken place. We cease from war, we are no longer enemies, we have entered into a state of peace. The believer, as he calmly meditates on the atoning work of Jesus Christ, sees that he has been led thereby out of the storm into the calm, out of war into peace. Enmity is over and peace is proclaimed.
2. We realize that Christ conducts us into a standing in grace. By his gracious mediation we pass into a new relation to God; we realize that we are justified, as believers, from all things from which we could not be justified by the Law of Moses. We can now stand before God, and realize our pardon and acceptance in the Beloved.
3. We are enabled to rejoice in hope of God"s heavenly glory. For the justified condition into which we have come through Christ is intended to reach through the present life and issue in the glory of the life to come. It is no mere temporary frame of mind, but a permanent state, into which our Saviour has brought us.
4. We are enabled to profit by life"s tribulations. So much is this the case that we are enabled to congratulate ourselves upon (kaucwmeya) our tribulations; for through these we reach the power of patient endurance (upomonh), and through the power of patient endurance we reach experience (dokimh , which means the result of the probation, as well as the "probation" itself, and the former gives here, notwithstanding the Revisers, the better sense); and through experience we reach hope the hope of heavenly glory, since as its earnest there is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost a consciousness that we are the objects of the Divine love. The hope can never be disappointed. We have a "present heaven" in our happy assurance of God"s love. We have passed out of the gloom into the gladness, and beyond us and awaiting us there lies the glory. Thus our tribulations conduct us to assurances of Divine love such as we could not otherwise enjoy.
II THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DIVINE LOVE. (Vers. 6-10) The apostle, to confirm believers in the assurance of God"s love, proceeds to exhibit its history.
1. And he shows its sovereign character. That is to say, it was when we were without strength, when we were helpless and hopeless in our guilt, that God gave love"s greatest proof in Christ dying for the ungodly. It was, therefore, no reason in us, but solely the exercise of God"s sovereign love, which led to the death of Jesus for the ungodly.
2. The death of Jesus is the great demonstration of God"s love. Men have occasionally sacrificed their lives for good men, never for a merely just one; but God in Christ sacrificed his life for those who are yet sinners. No mightier demonstration of Divine love can he imagined than this dying of God"s Son for sinners. And it is well here to notice that as a "trinitarian transaction," as Shedd has happily put it, God in Christ"s death exhibits "his own love" (Revised Version). Through the unity of Father and Son in the Divine essence, the death of Jesus is really the self-sacrifice of God. It is, therefore, the most marvellous of all exhibitions of love.
3. The resurrection-life of Jesus is the great guarantee of our salvation from Divine wrath. Jesus died to secure our justification. We are justified by his blood. In this God has reconciled us to himself. The resurrection of Jesus is accordingly the proof that God is satisfied with his own self-sacrifice in Jesus Christ, and so his wrath is turned away from us through the spectacle of a risen Saviour. "The highest form of love," says Shedd, "that, namely, of self-sacrifice, prompts the triune God to satisfy his own justice, in the room and place of the sinner who has incurred the penalty of justice. In the work of vicarious atonement, God himself is both the offended and the propitiating party. This is taught in 2Co_5:18, "God hath reconciled us to himself; Col_1:20, "To reconcile all things to himself. God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, is Judge, Priest, and Sacrifice, all in one Being. The common objections to the doctrine of the propitiation of the Divine anger rest upon the unitarian idea of the Deity. According to this view, which denies personal distinctions in the essence, God, if propitiated, must be propitiated by another being than God. Christ is merely a creature. The influence of the atonement upon God is, therefore, a foreign influence from the sphere of the finite. But, according to the trinitarian idea of the Supreme Being, it is God who propitiates God. Both the origin and the influence of the atonement are personal, and not foreign, to the Deity. The transaction is wholly in the Divine Essence. The satisfaction of justice, or the propitiation of anger (whichever terms be employed, and both are employed in Scripture) is required by God, and made by God." It is a risen Saviour, living and reigning, who saves us from fear of Divine wrath and assures us of acceptance.
III JOY THROUGH RECEIVING THE RECONCILIATION. (Ver. 11) Now, when we appreciate God"s wondrous love in providing a reconciliation, then we receive it by faith, and find ourselves constrained to rejoice in God who could so provide for us. Moreover, it is clear from the term "received" (elabomen) that the "reconciliation" (katallagh) is not something paid by the sinner, but something divinely provided which has to be accepted. It is an additional obligation imposed, not a price paid. God is so regal as to "reconcile himself," and then ask us to receive the benefit thereof. We ought to rejoice in such a God. Verily his thoughts are not our thoughts, nor his ways our ways. The justified have every reason to be joyful in their King. R.M.E.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Therefore being justified by faith.
Rom_5:1
Therefore being justified by faith.
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Justification
We have here--
I. A state or condition--justified. This implies--
1. Previous dishonour. A truly righteous character needs no justification.
2. Complete satisfaction. A man who owes a debt can only be justified when that debt is paid; although it need not be paid by himself.
3. Perfect restoration--to all rights, privileges, position, etc. Justification does not mean righteousness. A man is justified although he is defiled in sin. The justification of man by God is His counting man as righteous.
II. A means or method--faith. Faith is that principle which unites a man with Christ, and so enables him to appropriate all the Saviours merits and righteousness. Substitution, to be effectual, not only requires its acceptance by the judge, but the acceptance of the Saviour by the sinner as his Substitute. Faith is that acceptance by the sinner. Notice--
1. That this act is difficult. It is contrary to human nature--men would rather trust themselves than God. Hence they add rites and ceremonies.
2. It includes acts as well as conviction and trust. Faith without works is dead, and a dead principle has no existence.
III. A result attained--peace with God. Peace is desirable with man, much more with God. True peace can be obtained in no other way but this. There is a state which is often mistaken for it, such as indifference, a numbed conscience. Gratuitous pardon without justification by atonement would not be able to give peace, but pardon through satisfied justice can. Nothing can satisfy the sense of justice but trust in the justice-satisfying Saviour. (Homilist.)
Justification
I. Its nature.
1. From the meaning of the word.
2. From the type (Lev_16:21).
(1) The two goats were necessary to set forth the perfect work of Christ: the first in atoning for sin, the other in bearing it away.
3. In its foundation (Rom_3:24-25; Rom_5:9).
(1) The foundation is solid.
(2) The grace is perfect.
II. Its condition. By faith. Consider--
1. The root meaning of the word.
2. The naturalness of the thing signified.
3. What is involved in unbelief.
III. Its fruits.
1. Peace (Rom_5:1).
(1) Its nature.
(2) With whom established.
(3) Through whom acquired.
2. Standing (Rom_5:2).
3. Joy (Rom_5:2).
(1) Its inspiration. Hope of the glory of God.
(2) Its strength. In tribulations.
(3) Its intellectual basis (Rom_5:4).
(4) Its internal evidence (Rom_5:5).
IV. Its source. The love of God.
1. The manner in which it was procured (Rom_5:8).
(1) Commendeth should be rendered giveth proof of.
2. The character of those for whom Christ died.
(1) Those without strength (Rom_5:6).
(2) Sinners (Rom_5:8).
(3) Such an exhibition of love unparalleled (Rom_5:7).
3. The purpose for which God gave His Son (Rom_5:9-10).
V. Practical lessons.
1. The blessing of which this lesson treats is the greatest need of man.
2. The sacrifice which Christ made to procure this blessing the most wonderful fact in history.
3. The condition on which this blessing may be obtained the most reasonable and easy.
4. The benefits which this blessing confers on the believer in this life are the most precious God can bestow.
5. The glory to which the believer by it lays claim is ineffable and eternal. (D. C. Hughes, A. M.)
Justification more than forgiveness
A friend with whom you have been long doing business falls into a condition of insolvency, and you find that he is your debtor to a large amount. There is no prospect of his ever being able to pay you back, and you have reason to know that this condition of debt arises not merely from his misfortune, but from his fault. Under these circumstances it would be possible for you to liberate him from his debt by an act of forgiveness. Let us suppose that you adopt this course; the man would no longer be in fear of a debtors prison, and would no doubt feel himself under a great obligation to you. But would such a state of things be likely to bring you into closer personal relations with each other? Would it not necessarily produce on the contrary a certain distance and constraint? On the other hand, the forgiven debtor must needs, me thinks, feel ashamed to look his generous creditor in the face, must feel ill at ease in his presence, and would shrink from familiar social intercourse with the family of one on whom his conduct has inflicted such serious losses. On the other hand, the forgiving creditor could scarcely be expected to select such a person for his friend, and to treat his past conduct as if it were a thing easily to be forgotten. But to illustrate our position further, let us now present another case. Let us suppose that the creditor is so convinced of the sincerity of the regret which his debtor professes, and has reason to believe that the severe lesson has wrought in him so great a moral change that he feels himself free to make an experiment which most of us would certainly regard as a perilous one; let us suppose that, instead of remitting his debt, he introduces him into partnership with his own son, with whose business he is himself closely concerned. This his new connection with a solvent and flourishing firm places him, we may say, in a position of solvency, removes the stigma of bankruptcy, puts him in the way of making a full return to his benefactor, to whom at the same time it greatly enhances his obligation. Now it is easy to see how this man--not merely forgiven, but in a certain sense justified--will be brought by such an arrangement into the closest relations with his benefactor. Friendly social intercourse will exist without restraint, and he who under the former mode of treatment might have seemed little better than an escaped convict will now be a recognised and respected member of the social circle in which his creditor moves. (W. H. Aitken, M. A.)
Justification by faith
There is no one who has not asked the question to which these words give the true answer. How shall man have peace with God? Wherever man is found, whether savage or civilised, rich or poor, he is found attempting to solve this problem. For everywhere man is found beset with present miseries, and haunted with the dread of some angry power that inflicts them. And, therefore, everywhere man is found endeavouring to appease this displeasure by making peace with his God. Now to this question there are three answers possible: that man might restore himself, or that God alone might restore man, or that God and man together might effect this restoration. The first is the religion of the heathen: he seeks to appease God by his own acts; he will give even his first born for his transgressions. The second is the religion of the Pharisee: God, I thank Thee, I am not as other men are. The third is the religion of the publican. God be merciful to me, a sinner. Which is the true one?
I. Scripture everywhere asserts that God alone justifies (Mic_6:7; Psa_49:7; Isa_45:21-22). Hear the word of the Lord! Here, then, is a simple and an unerring test, by which to try every system of religion.
1. To justify means to pronounce guiltless. It never signifies to make just, but always to declare or pronounce just (Pro_17:15). This justification is indispensable to peace with God, for guilt cannot be at peace with justice. Before God can be at peace with any man, He must first pronounce him to be righteous.
2. Here, then, arise two great questions: first, what righteousness is this? and, secondly, how does it become ours? St. Paul tells us that it is through Christ. But even, for the sake of His dear Son, God cannot say the thing that is not. Unless there be perfect righteousness seen by Him, He cannot say He sees it. How, then, does Christ procure us this perfect righteousness? (2Co_5:21). In it is laid down, that Christ procured our righteousness by being made sin for us. Clearly, then, if we know how He was made sin, we know how we are made righteous. Was He, then, made really and truly sinful? God forbid. He, the Holy One, was, for our sakes, reckoned or accounted sinful. In the same way, therefore, we sinners are, for His sake, reckoned righteous; our sins are reckoned as if they were His; His righteousness is reckoned as if it were ours. To be justified through Christ, therefore, is to have the righteousness of Christ so imputed to us, that God reckons us, or pronounces us, just. This righteousness is bestowed upon us by faith. Faith is the link that joins together the justice of God and the satisfaction of Christ in the person of the believer, so that God can be just, and the justifier of him that believes.
3. Is there, then, no real righteousness in the believer? does God pronounce him who is unholy, holy; and admit the unclean, in his uncleanness, into His presence? Assuredly not. God never pronounced any man holy whom He did not also make holy. There is a righteousness external and a righteousness internal: both are real--both shall one day be perfect; but that which is wrought for us is perfect from the first; that which is wrought in us is imperfect, and gradually arrives at perfection: the one at once and forever justifies; the other progressively sanctifies.
4. But how does this doctrine make God alone the Saviour without any cooperation on the part of man? Is not faith a work of the mind? and is not this, at least in part, the cause of the sinners justification? We answer, No! for we are not justified because of our faith, but by our faith. Faith is the hand which the sinner stretches forth to receive the free gift of Gods mercy; but it is not the stretching out of the hand which induces the bestowal of the alms. Nay, more, that very hand is palsied; we have no power of ourselves to put it forth. Faith, itself, is a free gift of God; it is not until He has said, Reach forth thine hand, that we can, by doing so, receive the alms of His free mercy, which, because of Christs satisfaction, He is able, and, because of His own infinite love, He is willing, to bestow upon us.
5. This doctrine, then, fully answers the test to which we agreed to submit it: it reveals a salvation, which is Gods work, and His alone; prompted by His love, designed by His wisdom, and accomplished by His power. This work of mans salvation has upon it the impress of divinity; it displays that wonderful union of power and wisdom that is found in all Gods works, which makes them seem at once so simple and yet so mysterious. View it in its aspect towards man, how simple it seems--Believe and live! View it in its aspect as regards God, as His plan devised for the salvation of man, without the compromise of any one of His attributes, it is the great mystery of godliness. This plan of salvation befits the majesty and the wisdom of God, while it is adapted to the ignorance and the weakness of man, This river of life is unfathomable, in its mysterious depths, by the mightiest of created beings; and yet the little child may kneel by its brink and drink of its sweet waters that flow softly, clear as crystal, from beneath the throne of God.
6. It is an ancient doctrine this; older than Luther, who revived it, or Paul, who defended it, or Abraham, who exemplified it. It was revealed by God, at the gate of Eden, to the first sinner who, by faith, hoped for deliverance yet to be accomplished by the seed of the woman. The first man who believed was justified by faith. The last saint that enters heaven shall enter it praising God, who, justifying him by faith, gives peace to his soul forever and ever, through Jesus Christ.
II. Let us now contrast with it mans plan of salvation, in which he seeks to mingle his righteousness with that of God. The error of the self-righteous (Rom_10:3) is that he seeks a righteousness of his own, because he will not submit to be saved by the righteousness of God; as man fell by seeking to be his own God, so he remains fallen by seeking to be his own saviour. As he once refused to be entirely ruled by God, so he now refuses to be entirely saved by God. This is a most subtle and dangerous error.
1. The statement of this doctrine we will take from the Church of Rome, because Romanism is a religion of human nature, reduced to a regular system, and because we believe this difference between her and us is generally misunderstood.
(1) Let us clearly state how Rome and we are agreed in this matter. We are agreed--
(a) That man is so utterly fallen that he has no power to help himself.
(b) That he cannot be saved unless God bestow on him a perfect righteousness.
(c) That God does bestow this righteousness for Christs sake.
(2) Where, then, do we differ?
(a) As to the nature of this righteousness. We say that it is a righteousness imputed; she, that it is a righteousness implanted. We say it is a righteousness wrought for us; she, it is righteousness wrought in us. We say, God, for Christs sake, reckons us as perfectly righteous, and then proceeds to make us holy; she says, God, for Christs sake, makes us perfectly holy, and then pronounces us, because of this inherent holiness, to be righteous. In other words, we hold that God justifies and also sanctifies; Rome holds that He only sanctifies.
(b) As to the manner in which this righteousness is applied to us: we say, by faith only; she says, in the sacraments: she holds that this righteousness is infused into every baptised man, so that he is made perfectly righteous, and this state of justification, she holds, further, may be endangered by venial sin, and lost by deadly sin, and that it progresses so that a man may be more or less justified at one time than another. Now observe the subtlety of this error. It might be said this doctrine of Rome answers our test, for it ascribes all the work of salvation to God; it declares that this inherent righteousness is Gods free gift, just as you say your imputed righteousness is. Surely there is no claim here made for mans righteousness. Let us see how our Lord disposes of this answer. Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee the other a publican, and the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself--God, I thank Thee, I am not as other men are. Where is self-righteousness here? The Pharisee claims no merit--he declares the righteousness which he presents to God, to be Gods work; God has made him to differ; he fasts, and prays, and gives alms, but the power to do these good works he acknowledges to have come from God; and yet it is said that he trusted in himself that he was righteous. Why? Because the righteousness he presented was a righteousness in him; it was not the righteousness of God, and it availed him nothing to say that it was Gods gift at first. It is self-righteous to present to God as a reason for pardon anything in man, whether that be said to be originally Gods gift or not; he who comes to Him must come as the publican, God be merciful to me,--not a justified or sanctified man, but me a sinner! Add to this, that even if the righteousness be Gods gift in the first instance, yet the preserving of it, the increase of it, by faith, and prayer, and penance, are the mans own, upon this system, so that such an one must claim the reward of debt and not of grace.
2. Although we have gone to Rome for a definition of it, this doctrine is to be found among ourselves. How many are there who believe that God, for Christs sake, will accept them if they do their best--Christs merits making up for their deficiency! How many more are there who think that God, for Christs sake, will enable them to keep His holy law, and so accept them as righteous! And how many are there who imagine that God, for Christs sake, accepts their faith as something meritorious, justifying them because they hold the doctrine of justification by faith! In all these, from the open claim of heaven as a reward, to the more subtle claim of merit for having rejected all merit; and of righteousness for having renounced righteousness; in all these there is the same error--the presenting to God of something in us, instead of presenting the perfect righteousness of Christ. (Abp. Magee.)
Man saved
The words contain a golden chain of highest blessings bestowed by God upon all true Christians. Notice--
I. The Divine method of salvation.
1. Faith in Christ removes the condemnation. It means both a general trust in Gods revelations and grace, and a special trust in Christ as given by the Fathers love to be the Redeemer of His people. Understanding, will, affections, risking their all upon Him. Justification is not perfection. Not justified by the law of innocency, or of Moses, but by the law of Christ--who died for our sins, and was raised again for our justification.
2. Faith in Christ brings the believer into close communion with the Father. By whom also we have access, etc. They are reconciled, and in a State of love and friendship. Since man once sinned, Gods justice and mans conscience tell us that we are unfit for Gods acceptance or communion immediately, but must have a suitable mediator. Blessed be God for a daysman appointed betwixt us and Himself! Without Him I dare not pray, I cannot hope, I fear to die; God would else frown me away to misery. All the hope and pardon that I have, come by this Author and Finisher of our faith:
(1) This is joyous intercourse--Peace with God.
(2) It opens up a bright future. And rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3. Faith in Christ strengthens the child of God in tribulation. Not only so, but, etc. The glory revealed unto us is so transcendent, and tribulation so small and short, that an expectant of glory may well rejoice in spite of bodily sufferings. It is tribulation for Christ and righteousness sake that we are to glory in; tribulation for our sins must be patiently and penitently born.
(1) Knowing that tribulation worketh patience. That which worketh patience should be a matter of joy; for patience can do more good for us than tribulation can harm. Why then do I complain under suffering, and study so little the exercise of patience?
(2) And patience experience, and experience hope. What profitable experiences are to be derived from patient suffering! Of Gods providence, of our own dependence upon a higher power, of the fickleness of human friendship, etc.
(3) And hope maketh not ashamed. That is, true hope of what God hath promised shall never be disappointed. They that trust in deceitful creatures are disappointed and ashamed of their hope; but God is true and ever faithful. All this shows the superiority of a free spirit over carnal weapons.
II. The indwelling of the Holy Ghost is the source of all excellency in the Christian character.
1. By the love of God shed abroad is meant--
(1) The realisation of Divine life in the soul.
(2) The sweet experiences arising from the absence of doubts and fears.
(3) It leads Gods adopted children to love one another:
2. The Spirit within--
(1) Is helpful to overcome temptation. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.
(2) Mortifies the fleshly lusts that war against the soul. The desperately wicked heart is a hotbed of lusts and passions that require to be weeded, else they will choke the germs of the good seed. We cannot serve God and Mammon.
3. Points to a future life, and proves our title to it. There are some so blind as to think that man shall have no hereafter, because brutes have not. But it is enough for us to know that God hath promised it; and let it be our earnest prayer, Shed more abroad upon my heart, by the Holy Spirit, that love of Thine which will draw up my longing soul to Thee, rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God. (Richard Baxter.)
Justification by faith
The justification of which Paul speaks is--
1. Not that gracious constitution of God by which, for the sake of Christ, He so far delivers men from the guilt of Adams sin as to place them in a salvable state, and by virtue of which all infants dying in infancy are saved (see Rom_5:18); for justification is not common to the race, but is experienced by certain individuals.
2. Not the justification of those who lived under inferior dispensations, or who now live in countries where the gospel is not known. On this point there are two extremes.
(1) The unauthorised severity of those who hold that all heathens are doomed to damnation.
(2) The undistinguishing charity of those who insinuate that the heathen are perfectly safe, and need not be disturbed in their superstitions. Each of these is remote from the truth.
3. Not justification before men by the evidence of works (Jam_2:1-26), but the justification of penitent sinners before God, which is necessarily previous.
4. Not the justification of persevering believers at the last day. This will be pronounced on the evidence of works springing from faith, and evidencing its genuineness and continuance. Our business is with a present justification, Being justified. Let us look at:--
I. Its nature. We assume--
(1) That all men naturally are in a state of guilt and condemnation. Our hereditary depravity is odious to the God of Purity, while our consequent personal iniquity renders us liable to punishment.
(2) That the man of whose justification we are about to speak is convinced that this is his state.
2. What, then, is meant by justification in these circumstances? To justify a sinner is to consider him relatively righteous, and to deal with him as such, notwithstanding his past unrighteousness, by clearing and releasing him from various penal evils, especially from Gods wrath and the liability to eternal death. Hence justification and forgiveness are substantially the same (Act_13:38-39; Rom_4:5; Rom_4:8). Note that justification--
(1) Does not in the least degree alter the evil nature and desert of sin. It is the holy Lord who justifieth. The penalty is still naturally due, though graciously remitted. Hence the duty of continuing to confess and lament even pardoned sin (Eze_16:62-63).
(2) Is not, as Romish and some mystic divines contend, the being made righteous by the infusion of a sanctifying influence, which confounds justification with regeneration.
(3) Extends to all past sins (Act_13:39). God does not justify us by degrees, but at once.
(4) However effectual to our release from past guilt, does not terminate our state of probation. As he who is now justified was once condemned, so he may again come into condemnation by relapsing into sin, as was the case with Adam.
(5) If lost, may be recovered (Psa_32:1-5; cf. Rom_4:1; Rom_4:8).
II. Its immediate results.
1. The restoration of amity and intercourse between the pardoned sinner and the pardoning God. We have peace with God, and consequently access to Him. The ground of Gods controversy with us being removed, we become objects of His friendship (Jam_2:23). This reconciliation, however, does not mean deliverance from all the evils which sin has entailed, viz., suffering and death, but it entitles us to such supports and such promises of sanctifying influence as will turn the curse into a blessing.
2. Adoption and the consequent right to eternal life. God condescends to become not only our Friend, but our Father (Rom_8:17).
3. The habitual indwelling of the Holy Spirit. As sin induced the Spirits departure, so the pardon of sin is followed by deliverance from it, because it makes way for His return to our souls (Gal_3:13-14; Gal_4:1; Act_2:38). Of this indwelling the immediate effects are--
(1) Tranquillity of conscience (Rom_5:5; Rom_8:15-16).
(2) Power over sin, a prevailing desire and ability to walk before God in holy obedience (Rom_8:1, etc.).
(3) A joyous hope of heaven (Rom_5:2, Rom_15:13; Gal_5:5).
III. Its method.
1. The originating cause is the free, sovereign, undeserved, and spontaneous love of God towards fallen man (Tit_2:11; Tit_3:4-5; Rom_3:24).
2. The meritorious cause is Christ; for what He did in obedience to the precepts of the law, and what He suffered in satisfaction of its penalty, taken together, constitute that mediatorial righteousness, for the sake of which the Father is ever well pleased in Him. In this all who are justified have a saving interest. Not that it is imputed to them in its formal nature or distinct acts; for against any such imputation there lie insuperable objections from both reason and Scripture. But the collective merit and moral effects of all which the Mediator did and suffered are so reckoned to our account that, for the sake of Christ, we are released from guilt and accepted of God.
3. The instrumental cause is faith.
(1) Present faith. We are not justified by--
(a) Tomorrows faith foreseen, for that would lead to the Antinomian justification from eternity.
(b) By yesterdays faith recorded or remembered, for that would imply that justification is irreversible. Justification is offered on believing. We are never savingly interested in it until we believe; and it continues in force only so long as we continue to believe.
(2) The acts of this faith are:--
(a) The assent of the understanding to the testimony of God in the gospel, and especially that part of it which concerns the design and efficacy of Christs sacrifice for sin.
(b) The consent of the will and affections to this plan of salvation, such an approbation and choice of it as imply the renunciation of every other refuge, and a steady, decided, and thankful acquiescence in Gods revealed method of forgiveness.
(3) Actual trust in the Saviour and personal apprehension of His merits.
IV. Inferences.
1. That we are not justified by the merit of our works, inasmuch as no obedience we can render can come up to the requisitions of the Law of Innocence.
2. That repentance is neither the cause nor instrument of justification. Repentance makes no atonement, and therefore cannot supersede the blood of Jesus; nor does it secure any personal or justifying interest in it; this is the object of faith only.
3. That the Spirits work in regeneration and sanctification is not the previous condition of our justification, or the prerequisite qualification for it. For in that case we should be saved without a Saviour, which is a contradiction. The work of pardon for yon must precede the work of purification in you. In the cleansing of the leper, the blood was first to be used, then the oil (Lev_14:1-57). And in order to your salvation you must first bays the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, and then you shall have the renewing of the Holy Ghost.
4. That our justification is not by the merit of faith itself a refined theory of justification by works.
V. Reflections.
1. How clear and urgent is the duty of seeking an experimental enjoyment of justifying grace.
2. How sacred are the obligations of the justified:
(1) Gratefully acknowledge it.
(2) Diligently improve it.
(3) Practically evidence your enjoyment of it. (Jabez Bunting, D. D.)
Justification by faith
I. Justification defined. Justification is the Divine judicial act which applies to the sinner believing in Christ the benefit of the atonement, delivering him from the condemnation of his sin, introducing him into a state of favour, and treating him as a righteous person. Though justifying faith is an operating principle which, through the Holy Spirits energy, attains to an interior and perfect conformity to the law, or internal righteousness, it is the imputed character of justification which regulates the New Testament use of the word. Inherent righteousness is connected more closely with the perfection of the regenerate and sanctified life. In this more limited sense justification is either the act of God or the state of man.
I. God the Justifier. The act of justifying is that of God as the Judge. Generally it is δικαίωσις, the word which pronounces the sinner absolved from the condemning sentence of the law, and it refers always and only to the sins that are past. Whether regarded as the first act of mercy, or as the permanent will of Gods grace towards the believer in Christ, or as the final sentence in the Judgment, it is the Divine declaration which discharges the sinner as such from the condemnation of his sin. It is God that justifieth--God in Christ, for all judgment is committed to the Son, who both now and ever pronounces as Mediator the absolving word, declaring it in this life to the conscience by His Spirit. It is the voice of God, the Judge in the mediatorial court, where the Redeemer is the Advocate, pleading His own propitiatory sacrifice and the promise of the gospel declared to the penitence and faith of the sinner whose cause He pleads. The simplest form in which the doctrine is stated is in Rom_8:33-34. Here the apostle has in view the past, present, and future of the believer; the death, resurrection, and intercession of Christ; and the one justifying sense against which there can be no appeal in time or in eternity. God is Θεὸς ὁ διακιῶν, in one continuous and ever-present act.
II. Man as justified. The state into which man is introduced is variously described, according to his various relations to God, to the Mediator, and the law. As an individual sinner he is forgiven: his justification is pardon, his punishment is remitted. As a person ungodly, he is regarded as righteous: righteousness is imputed to him, or his transgression is not imputed to him. As a believer in Jesus his faith is counted for righteousness. All these phrases describe, under its negative and its positive aspect, one and the selfsame blessing of the new covenant as constituting the state of grace into which the believer has entered and in which as a believer he abides. This is attested by passages running through the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles; passages which only confirm the promises of the Old Testament. Our Lords forerunner was fore-announced to give knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins (Luk_1:77). Our Saviours word was, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee; but he spoke of the publican as praying, God be merciful to me a sinner, and as going down to his house justified--these words being introduced for the first time, and both being reserved for abundant future service, especially in the writings of St. Paul. He left the commission that remission of sins should be preached in His name. St. Peter preached that remission of sins, and afterwards varied the expression, that your sins may be blotted out (Act_2:38; Act_3:19)--counterparts in meaning. But St. Paul takes up the Saviours words and unites them (Act_13:38-39), and in this Epistle adds all the other terms and unites the whole in one charter of privileges (Rom_4:4-8). In this passage all the phrases are united without exception, and they are represented as the act of God and the state of man, the one and various blessing of habitual experience. To sum up: the state of διακιοσύνη is that of conformity to law, which, however, is always regarded as such only through the gracious imputation of God, who declares the believer to be justified negatively from the condemnation of his sin, and positively reckons to him the character, bestowing also the privileges of righteousness. The former or negative blessing is pardon distinctively, the latter or positive blessing is justification proper. (W. B. Pope, D. D.)
Justification by faith: an instance of
A minister of the gospel was once preaching in a public hospital. There was an aged woman present, who for several weeks had been aroused to attend to the concerns of her soul. When she heard the Word of God from the lips of His servant, she trembled like a criminal in the hands of the executioner. Formerly she had entertained hope of acceptance with God, but she had departed from her comforter, and now she was the prey of a guilty conscience. A short time after this the same minister was preaching in the same place, but during the first prayer his text and the whole arrangement of his discourse went completely from hint; he could not recollect a single sentence of either, but Rom_5:1 took possession of his whole soul: Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He considered this a sufficient intimation of his duty, and descanted freely on justification by faith and a sinners peace with God through the atonement of Christ. It was the hour of mercy to this poor distracted woman. A ray of Divine consolation now penetrated her soul, and she said to the minister, when taking his leave, I am a poor vile sinner, but I think, being justified by faith, I begin again to have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I think Christ has now got the highest place in my heart; and oh! I pray God He would always keep Him there.
Justification by faith: an instance of
Some years ago a clergyman was preaching on this text in the East End of London, and at the end of his sermon he invited any who were anxious to come and converse with him in the vestry. He was followed by an intelligent looking young man, who said, I am going to leave England in two or three days, and perhaps this is the last opportunity I shall have of talking with a clergyman: My father and I have had a terrible quarrel, and it ended in his turning me out, telling me never to darken his door again. I wandered up to London, but knew not where to look for employment. At last I found a berth as sailor before the mast, and before I go I want to ask you, What must I do to be saved? The clergyman endeavoured to make the way of salvation as clear as he could to him. They parted, however, without there being any apparent change in the young mans spiritual condition, though he seemed awakened and much in earnest. Time wore on, and the incident had almost passed from the clergymans mind, when one day a sailor called at his residence. Do you remember, he said, some months ago a young man coming to your vestry after the Sermon you had preached on the words, Being justified by faith, we have peace with God? Oh, yes; I remember it perfectly. Well, he went on board the London, and he and I became great friends, because I am a Christian, and I soon found out that he wanted to be a Christian too; so we used often to have long talks over our Bibles, and used to pray together; yet somehow or other I could never get him to see things quite clearly. I suppose he was looking to his feelings more than to Christ. Well, then came the terrible catastrophe, and that young man was told off by the captain, with myself and a few others, to man one of the boats. The boat was lowered, and soon was crowded; but by some means the poor fellow was left behind in the ship. We hardly knew what to do, for our boat was too full already. Besides, the ship was settling fast, and we were afraid of being dragged down with her. Yet we did not like to pull away. Then I heard him call me by name, as he clung to the rigging; and he shouted across the water, Goodbye, mate! If you get ashore safe, inquire for the Rev. H. B--, of Limehouse Docks, London, and tell him that here in the presence of God I can say at last, Being justified by faith, I have peace with God through my Lord Jesus Christ. As he said the words, the ship gave her last lurch, and he disappeared in a watery grave. (W. H. Aitken, M. A.)
Justification by faith: its effects
1. The effect of justification should be peace and holiness.
(1) A plan of deliverance which did not include both these would be a mockery. If it did not secure peace it would not meet our wants; if it did not secure holiness it would not meet Gods requirements.
(2) Accordingly we find that God describes His plan of salvation as effecting both. Christ has made peace through the blood of His Cross that He may present us holy and unblamable and unreproachable in His sight. It is the very God of peace who sanctifies us wholly.
2. The doctrine, therefore, which does not produce these effects is not the true one, and there can be no surer test by which to try the truth of any particular doctrine than this. The religion which really produces both had no man for its teacher, for these are the last things which men would ever think of joining together. All human teachers and lawgivers appeal to fear. All laws are accompanied by penalties. It certainly would never occur to any man to attempt to produce obedience by remitting all penalties; and therefore it is that the natural man always seeks to obtain one of these by the sacrifice of the other.
(1) Many try to forget God altogether, or they take refuge in some easy mode of appeasing Him--something said, done, or felt, which quiets conscience; and so they have peace--peace without holiness.
(2) But others are not so easily satisfied; their disposition is naturally anxious, or their consciences are scrupulous, and they cannot feel quite comfortable in their sins. Such seek to obtain peace by refraining from sin; but as their only motive is fear, they know of no other way of increasing their obedience than by quickening and strengthening this fear. In such religion takes a gloomy and terrible form. Here is an attempt after holiness, but it is holiness without peace.
3. And thus the mind of the natural man is ever oscillating between these two extremes of sinful peace or painful obedience, but never attaining to the union of these two; never imagining it possible for man to be at once fearless and obedient; and, accordingly, it is a remarkable fact that all false religions have two different aspects, one offering easy terms of salvation to the common crowd, who only desire a religion which shall allow them to sin without fear; the other providing austerities and penances for the few whose intellect or conscience cannot be so easily contented. All these religions, then, are but half religions; they attempt to satisfy mans desire for peace or Gods demand for holiness; they never even profess to satisfy both. There is but one religion which does this; it is that which is proclaimed in our text.
I. Justification by faith gives peace.
1. He who believes that God, for Christs sake, reckons him holy, not imputing his trespasses unto him, has perfect peace, because he is trusting in a perfect work. The justice that demanded his condemnation now secures his forgiveness; the omnipotence once arrayed against him is now engaged in his defence. Here is the deep, abiding, perfect peace of him whose mind is stayed upon God.
2. On the other hand the doctrine of justification by inherent righteousness does not, and never can, give perfect peace; for it is a righteousness partly human and partly Divine, and therefore partakes of the uncertainty and imperfection of all things human. He who holds it believes, as Dr. Pusey says, that he was once, in his baptism, placed in a state of justification; in which, having been placed, he has to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling through the indwelling Spirit of God working in him--a state which therefore admits of relapses and recoveries, but which is weakened by every relapse, injured by lesser, and destroyed for the time by grievous sin. Now, if this be the nature of his justification, how can he be sure, at any given moment, that he is justified? All that such a man can say is this, that once in his life he had a perfect righteousness to present to God, and that, if it had pleased God then to take him to Himself he had been blessed, but that whether he has this righteousness still is a very doubtful matter; and yet that night that mans soul may be required of him! What a miserable faith is this on which to bid a dying sinner rest his hopes for eternity! But this is not all the doubt and difficulty which this doctrine gives rise to, for the means by which justification is bestowed is said to be the sacrament of baptism. If so, perfect and complete justification can be had only once in each mans life; therefore, if he ever entirely lose it by deadly sin, how can it be regained? To meet this, Rome has devised another sacrament by which the sinner may be again made perfectly righteous. But for those who are not Romanists the Church has no second baptism to give, and therefore cannot pronounce the person who has sinned after baptism altogether free from his past sins. There are but two periods of absolute cleansing--baptism and the day of judgment. Again, if, after having been washed once for all in Christs blood we again sin, there is no more such complete absolution in this life, no restoration to the same state of undisturbed security in which God had, by baptism, placed us! Mark this confession! We will not pause to contrast it with the teaching of him who told baptized men that if they confessed their sins God was faithful and just to forgive them their sins. We will not delay to inquire whether this way of salvation, which gives no undisturbed security, can be the same with that which He revealed who said, Come unto Me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; or that which he taught, whose converts believing, rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory. We only ask, how can they who preach such a gospel as this claim to be the messengers of peace? what peace have they to offer? Picture to yourselves a teacher of this other gospel proclaiming this way of salvation beside a death bed.
3. But it is said this uncertainty and anxiety is just what is needed to make men zealous and cautious, and the doctrine may make fewer happy death beds but it will produce holier lives. We deny this, and, on the contrary, maintain--
II. That justification by faith does effect not only peace, but holiness; and that sacramental justification no more produces holiness than it does peace.
1. Holiness is conformity to Gods image. The perfect likeness of God, to which we are to be assimilated, is seen in Christ, who loved righteousness, and hated iniquity. A holy man, therefore, is not one who merely refrains from sin, nor yet one who strives to obey all Gods commands; he may do all this, and yet be utterly without holiness. But he is one who has become partaker of that Divine nature which was in Christ, the instinct of which it is to hate what God hates, and to love what He loves.
2. Now what is that power which can produce such conformity to Christ? Love is the only passion which assimilates to its object. Fear obeys, envy rivals, but love imitates. That religion will therefore most tend to holiness which most tends to produce in us love to God. Now we know that the belief which most powerfully moves us to love God must be that which most fully manifests the love of God to us. Which, then, of these two doctrines of justification displays most of the love of God to sinners? This question has received its answer from our Lord Himself (Luk_7:41). The publican went down to his house with a more loving and grateful heart than the Pharisee. The prodigal had doubtless a deeper love for the father than had the elder brother who had never given him cause of offence. There is more of loving, fervent, grateful joy in the heart of one penitent sinner who believes that being justified by faith he has peace with God, than there is in the heart of the ninety-and-nine just persons, who, believing that they have kept their baptismal righteousness, deem that they need no repentance. But if he who thus believes cannot but love, he who thus loves cannot but obey; the love of Christ constraineth him, the mercies of God persuade him, to present himself a living sacrifice unto God.
3. But this doctrine further tends to produce holiness because it tends to produce humility. No man is really holy until he is really humble. But who best learns humility--he who presents to God a righteousness in part his own, or he who confesseth that in him dwelleth no good thing?
4. This doctrine tends to produce holiness because it alone enables us to realise the promises of God. It is by these that we escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. Now he who believes that God will assuredly save him for the sake of Jesus Christ claims all the promises at once as his forever, so that he can say, I am confident; I know in whom I have believed, and that He is able to keep that which I have entrusted to Him against that day. Faithful is He that calleth me, who, also, will do it, and everyone that hath this hope purifieth himself even as He is pure. For think what must be the feelings of that man who, truly loving God, and desiring His presence, really believes that he shall spend an eternity with Him. Where the treasure is, there will the heart be also. On the other hand, we think it is equally clear that justification by inherent righteousness does not tend to holiness, because for love it substitutes fear; for humility, pride; for assurance, uncertainty. Such a doctrine may make ascetics, hermits, confessors, martyrs even--but never saints. (Abp. Magee.)
Faith alone the condition of justification
It is faith alone which justifies, and still the faith which justifies is not alone. Ears, feet, and hands are given to us at the same time that our eyes are, yet it is the office of the eye alone to see. In like manner repentance, love, obedience, are the invariable companions of faith; yet it is faith alone for which we claim the power and faculty of justifying. (J. Calvin.)
Justifying faith
I. Without works.
1. Faith is a condition of justification opposed to mans own righteousness which is of the law.
(1) Faith acknowledges that the legal, proper, primitive sense of the term justify, as the pronouncing him to be righteous who is righteous, is forever out of the question.
(a) As to the law: it has been broken, and its condemnation is acknowledged; it demands an obedience that never has been rendered since the fall.
(b) Then as to man himself, faith renounces all trust in human ability. It utterly abjures the thought of a righteousness springing from self. It acknowledges past sin, present impotence, and the impossibility of any future obedience cancelling the past (Gal_2:16). It disclaims all creaturely righteousness as such; the nullity of this is taught by conviction, felt in repentance, and confessed in faith.
(2) Hence the specific Evangelical phrase, Faith is counted for righteousness. This implies the absence of personal righteousness, and the reckoning of a principle, not righteousness, in its stead by a kind of substitution. In its stead: not as rendering good works needless, but displacing them forever as the ground of acceptance. Therefore faith does not justify as Containing the germ of all good works; as fides formata charitate, or faith informed and vivified by love. Not justifying through any merit in itself, it justifies as the condition on which is suspended the merciful application of the merits of Christ. Faith is not righteousness, as justifying; it is put to the account of a man in the mediatorial court as righteousness; not as a good work, but reckoned instead of the good works which it renounces. Lest the faith as itself a work should be regarded as righteousness the apostle varies the expression. He also says again and again inversely that righteousness--not, however, Christs--is imputed to the believer; not to faith itself, as if God regarded the goodness wrapped up in it (Rom_4:6; Rom_4:22; Rom_4:24). It is the man, in the naked simplicity of his self-renouncing, work-renouncing trust in God on whom the sentence of justification is pronounced.
(3) Imputation or reckoning has two meanings; the ascribing to one his own and what is not his own. The latter predominates in the three great theological imputations; that of the sin of Adam to the race, that of the race to Christ, and that of the benefit of Christs righteousness to the believer, as through the imputation of one mans disobedience many were made sinners (verse 19), and as the Lamb of God bore the sin of the world, being made sin for us by imputation as a sin offering who knew no sin, so the ungodly who in penitence believes has the efficacy of Christs obedience reckoned to him.
(4) This faith as a negative condition is of the operation of the Holy Ghost. He enables the soul to renounce every other trust. He convinces the mind of guilt and impotence; awakens in the heart the feeling of emptiness and longing desire; and so moves the will to reject every other confidence than Christ. But, though the influence of the Spirit produces it, it is so far only negative--a preparation for good rather than itself good.
2. Faith is the active instrument as well as the passive condition of justification.
(1) It is its instrumental cause; the originating being Gods love; the meritorious, Christs atoning obedience; the efficient, the Holy Ghost.
(2) Its object is God in Christ. In this as in all, I and My Father are one. Yet the specific object is not God absolutely, nor Christ in His revelation generally, but Christ as the mediatorial representative of sinners, and God as accepting the atonement for man (Act_16:31; Gal_2:16). In two ways this Epistle describes God as the object. Rom_4:5 implies what had preceded (Rom_3:25-26); and in relation to His resurrection (Rom_4:24). But the God of our whole redemption in Christ is the object of faith (Joh_3:16; Rom_8:32; Rom_8:11). He is the One God of the One Christ.
(3) It is never said that we are justified on account of faith, but through faith. Faith as the act of the soul by which it unites itself with the Lord, makes the virtue of His merit its own. It apprehends Christ and His atonement; ascribing all to Him, it receives all from Him.
(4) Faith is not assurance; but assurance is its reflex act. The same Spirit who inspires faith--which is alone (and without assurance) the instrument of salvation--ordinarily and always, sooner or later, enables the believer to say, He loved me and gave Himself for me (Gal_2:20; Eph_1:13).
(5) Faith, whether receptive or active, is an exercise of the human heart under the influence of the Holy Spirit through His actual revelation of Christ to the soul, the eyes of which are at the same moment opened. The unveiling of the Saviour and the unveiling of the sight to behold the Lamb of God in one and the same critical moment is the sufficing definition of saving trust. And at the same moment the active energy and passive renunciation of saving faith are, brought to the perfection of their unity.
II. Faith and works.
1. The works of faith declare the life and reality of the faith which justifies. Those works did not declare its genuineness at first when forgiveness was received (Rom_4:6; Rom_4:13); but afterwards and to retain that justification its works must absolutely be produced (Jam_2:18; Jam_2:21; Jam_2:24). In the whole sequel after receiving Christ, a man is justified not by faith only--which in this connection is no faith at all--but by faith living in its works (Jam_2:26) Here is the origin of the term living or lively faith; it is remarkable, however, that the invigorating principle is not from the faith to the works, but from the works to the faith.
2. The expression living faith suggests the vital relation of this subject to union with Christ. When St. Paul says that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (2Co_5:21), he means more than the non-imputation of sin. That we might become; our forensic justification being included of necessity, our moral conformity to the Divine righteousness cannot be excluded. These closing words are a resumption of the preceding paragraph, which ended with, If any man be in Christ he is a new creature. The righteousness of God in Him is the full realisation of the new method of conforming us to His attribute of righteousness. It is impossible to establish the distinction between in Christ for external, and Christ in us for internal righteousness; still the distinction may be used for illustration. We are accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood, in order that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith (Eph_1:6-7; Eph_3:17), that His grace may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. The vital union of faith secures both objects: our being reckoned as righteous because found in Him, and our being made righteous because He is in us as the Spirit of life and strength unto all obedience (Rom_8:2; Rom_8:4).
3. The justification of faith itself in and through its works, forms the Scriptural transition to internal and finished righteousness, which, however, is generally viewed as entire sanctification; improperly, however, if sanctification is regarded as finishing what righteousness leaves incomplete. To him who insists on bringing in the doctrine of sanctification to supplement as an inward work what in justification is only outward, St. James replies, Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? (Jam_2:22). Here is the finished result of faith which worketh by love (Gal_5:6); that one and indivisible work of faith (1Th_1:3), in the assertion of which at the outset of his teaching St. Paul, by anticipation, declared his agreement with St. James. Both show that justifying faith in a consummate religion is made perfect in its effects; and both with reference to the law, as again Antinomian renunciation of it (see also Rom_8:4). If righteousness is fulfilled in us, that must be by our being made righteous while reckoned such. But always, whether at the outset where works are excluded, or in the Christian life when they are required, whether on earth or in heaven, justification will ever be the imputation of righteousness to faith. Works only declare faith to be genuine and living. This alone can secure eternal life to those who, though as holy as their Lord Himself, will be apart from Him and in the record of the past, sinners still (Jud_1:21). (W. B. Pope, D. D.)
We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Peace with God
There is a peace which is not with God. A dull bovine contentment is the stagnancy of life, and not peace with God. Absence of conscience presenting lofty ideals and urging effort; and in place thereof a series of compromises with evil, making things easy all round, is not peace with God; it is the peace of the lowest organism. Peace with God is within the soul, the balmy, vital peace of the summer day, when the forces of Nature are working mightily with the repose of power, moving on without strain or care unto the harvest. Peace with God is:--
I. Peace with Gods retributive righteousness.
1. Gods laws are holy, just, and good. Disobedience ought, therefore, to be followed by punishment. And so the wrath of God, therefore, is revealed from heaven. Plainly is that wrath visible in the miseries of a dishonest and vicious society, in the life and doom of a Jezebel, a Caesar Borgia, or a Macbeth. But when the disobedience is manifested in a prudently selfish and godless life, the wrath is not so visible. Often such sinners, if they are clever, have little trouble. Most, however, who are not reconciled to God are uneasy and apprehensive. They feel at times as if some doom were on their track, now and again life feels like a prison, and in death they have no hope. The feeling of the fugitive and of the prisoner is the retributive providence of God, a foreshadowing of the judgment to come.
2. How, then, can transgressors be at peace with this retributive righteousness of God? Only by being justified through our Lord Jesus Christ, Now what is the right position for us to take up to God taking this gracious position to us? Plainly, to repent of the sin and to accept the forgiveness He thus offers. Taking this position, God justifies us--i.e., He acquits us from all penalty, and He declares us to be right with God. God is for us; who then can be against us? We are no longer as a fugitive pursued; we are at the feet of God, accepted as a child returned home; we are in right relations, and no soul can have peace till it is right.
II. Peace with Gods revealed truth; that is, that God is the Heavenly Father, that Jesus is His Christ and Son, who died for sin, and rose again.
1. How many in this day have not peace? Some are in honest doubt concerning it, but do not oppose it. Others, however, go to geology for stones to throw at it, to biology for theories to discredit it, to physical law as a great engine against it, and when fighting it forget their philosophic calm and their scientific modesty. Some raise a prejudice against it by holding up its professors to ridicule or by making merry with some of its facts. Accompanying this army is a motley crowd of camp followers, old sinners and thoughtless youths, the disappointed and the bitter, lacking courage for the fight, and caring not for the victory, but for the spoils--greater freedom for evil. Then, at a safe distance, is a great company of onlookers, not knowing which side to take. These are not to be envied. They who are definitely opposed have, it may be, a certain intellectual peace; they are not troubled with doubt, but their peace is not a peace with God. But they who doubtfully watch the fight are to be sympathised with. To be swung this way by this argument, then that way by that argument, and to feel, pendulum-like, no approach to the hour when the mind shall strike the truth, is a restless, painful state of mind. Being justified, we are delivered from such dispeace.
2. It is faith, and faith only, which can give certainty to our faith of the truth. Being justified, then, by faith, we have no doubt, no strife as to the truth of the truth. As our conscience has had peace with God by our being put right with God, so now our intellect has peace with Gods revealed truth by being assured of that truth.
III. Peace with Gods holy commandment. In commandment I include both Gods purpose and precept for our life.
1. There are works of fiction which have been written by two authors. Of course they must have decided the plot and its details between them, and each mast have worked in harmony. But suppose each had had a plot of his own, and had wrought each part according to his own particular plot! In the working or writing of our lives there are two--ourselves and our God. Gods purpose is, Seek first the kingdom of God, etc. But the purpose of many is at war with this. It is, Seek first the other things, and then, if you can, add God and religion unto them. Absorbed in their own selfish purpose, they forget the purpose of God. Consequently, in their lives there are strife, dispeace.
2. The whole question of keeping Gods commandment is simply a question of disposition, as the whole question of justification is simply a question of position with God. Love is good disposition, and love is the fulfilling of the law. Being justified by faith, we receive this disposition. Believing in this position of God toward us, we see His infinite love. Hence there is peace within--peace with the holy commandment; we want to fulfil it, we strive to fulfil it; it is no longer to us a task; it is a delight, and the burden is when we fail through weakness to fulfil it.
IV. Peace with Gods disciplinary providence.
1. Even where the purpose of our life is at one with Gods and we love His precepts, there fall to us, or at least to most of us, many trials and troubles. The wicked spread themselves as a green bay tree, but the righteous are often as a root out of the dry ground. Then comes the temptation to be not at peace with Gods providence; to be angry with God.
2. But our justification is overwhelming proof that God is not against us. If God had forgotten us He would never have sent His Christ for us. But if God love us, it may be said, it cannot be that it is God who sends the trouble to us. No; in many cases it is through the fault of self or others. But God could have prevented them. Yes, but only by interfering with the natural order of things; and rather than He should do that He thinks it best that we should suffer. Then since He so loves us, let us in confidence say, Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in Thy sight. Then the bitterness of trouble is past, the weight of the burden is gone. Moreover, Gods love for us is associated with infinite wisdom, and He will somehow cause the affliction to work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. As the fire which consumed the poor mans vineyard cracked the earth revealing veins of silver, thus afflicting the vineyard into a silver mine, so shall the fire which withers and consumes so much that we prize give us in place thereof a mine of imperishable and inexhaustible treasure. All things shall work together for good to them that love God. Conclusion: Note that the apostle bases this peace on our being justified with God. Many of us seek this peace by endeavouring, first of all, to be at peace with Gods providence; or, first of all, to be at peace with Gods revealed truth, or to be at peace with Gods commandment. But, first of all, we must take our right position at the feet of our God. It is monstrous to attempt to invert the Divine order in the lower spheres of Nature. It is more monstrous to attempt to invert the Divine order in these the higher spheres of grace. (Albert Goodrich, D. D.)
Peace with God
I. We live in one great world of trouble and the unerring word of inspiration plainly says that the disturbing force is sin. Yet not everybody chooses to admit that. It will be asserted that traditions of anger in the Supreme Being, coupled with an industrious reiteration of foreboding by a few credulous alarmists, have done most of the mischief. It would soon quiet down, if men and women would just take comfort in what is given them and let presages alone. Across the fair plains of Sicily, with the rising of every new dawn, stretches one deep line of darkness, drawn by the pyramidal form of Mount Etna. It is the unvarying reminder of the ruin that may at any hour fall heavily from the volcanos crater. And yet the inhabitants forbid you to speak of that giant phantom. Thus we live under the immediate shadow of Divine wrath. Men choose to think that there is nothing but incivility in a reminder of the coming day of final judgment. Still, it is better to believe that a few desire to be intelligent. What is it that breaks up the peace in this world? What will bring tranquillity and rest? There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked, etc. (Isa_57:21; Isa_57:19-20). If it is in antagonism with God, then a deep seated source of irritation and uneasiness is lodged in the centre of its being.
II. No quiet can possibly be found until the soul comes to be at one with God, and adjusts all its purposes to meet His declared will (Isa_22:17, etc.). The question all turns, therefore, upon the possession of justification, i.e., righteousness.
1. It becomes us in the outset to understand that righteousness is a purely individual acquisition. The gospel deals with human beings one by one.
2. What, then, is this justification by faith? A sinner is conceived as condemned at the bar of Gods justice; the punishment for his sins is death. Now Jesus Christ, as a redeemer and surety, comes and assumes the sinners exposures and liabilities. In effect, He stands in the sinners place. This is the picture so often presented by Paul; he appears never to be tired of it (verses 6-8). Peace comes, therefore, when purity has come beforehand. First pure, then peaceable. Saved souls are pardoned for Christs sake. The story is told of Martin Luther, that once the evil one appeared to enter his room with a vast roll of parchment, a catalogue of all his former sins. With a hollow burst of derisive laughter the fiend threw it on the floor, still holding one end in his hand so that it might easily unroll its awful length. There the frightened man was compelled to read, hour after hour, the terrible list of all the wicked deeds he had done in all his life. And his heart failed him as he gazed. Suddenly the devil called him by name, and pointed to some words along the top of the roll. Luther looked up and read aloud, All sin; and then he understood that no one of the many acts, or even thoughts, was to be left out. Hell appeared opening at once under his feet. His agony was intense. But Satan kept screaming, All sin! all sin! And at last, in order to afflict him the more, exclaimed, So says God, so says God, all sin, all sin! Now the mans study of Scripture stood him in excellent stead. For he asked, Where speaks God that word? There, there! answered the devil, pointing again to the parchment and putting his fiery finger on the two words, all sin, all sin. The reformer snatched the awful list away from his enemy, and unrolling it one turn more, in the other direction, discovered, as he hoped he would, the remainder of the inscription: The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin! So he learned that all his sins had been massed together upon that roll in order to announce that atonement had been made completely to cover them. And with a glad cry of exultant joy he awoke, while the devil disappeared with his parchment of woe. It is when a man knows his sins are all in the burden Jesus bore on the Calvary Cross, that he has no longer any fear about them. The work of righteousness is peace, and the effect of righteousness is quietness and assurance forever.
III. It is not possible to put into forms of speech the sources of enjoyment which a pardoned believer knows when he is once possessed of the peace which passes understanding; the soul like a bride rests in a love it cannot explain, when the sweet day of espousal to Christ has been reached.
1. The Christian cannot be alone, for a happy conscience, like a bird in his heart, keeps singing cheerily to give him company. He has no alarms, no suspicions. Nothing breaks up the calm, bright serenity of his trustful repose in Christ Jesus. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, etc.
2. Peace brings prosperity. God opens the door of His treasury of promise to the souls He has welcomed into the palace. He loves His Son, and they are His Sons friends. If our feet are upon the Rock of Ages it does not matter at all where the danger threatens. I have pain, said Richard Baxter, on his dying bed, I have pain; there is no arguing against sense; but then, I have peace, great peace! To any true believer, there is no shock in the appearance of that messenger who announces his departure. He seems to himself even now sitting in the antechamber of the palace, waiting; and death is only the black-dressed servant who comes out to say the King is ready to see him in the throne room. Conclusion: Surely it is worth something, in a world like this, to find one antidote for wakefulness and unrest. This is the peace which the world can neither give nor take away (verse 10). Each Christian receives a testimony in his soul which settles all his fears for the future. He has put his case out of his own hands. So he waits tranquilly for the judgment, knowing he is prepared for it, and shall stand clear in the end. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Peace with God
I. Why men have not peace.
1. One reason is a want of knowledge about ourselves. We do not see that peace is the thing we want. We sigh for it now and again, but we do not pursue it. Gold, pleasure, power, fame, we pursue with all our might; we do not covet peace except when we are weary, and want to sleep and dream.
(1) Look at yon solitary man watching the stream flow. He is saying, I would this restless bosom were like yon tranquil river. But he has not the courage to ask what is at the bottom of this discontent. He lets another sigh escape him, which goes to swell that great wind of unrest which goes moaning about the world, and hurries back to some scene of distraction, where he may get rid, for a time, of that burden of himself which he cannot bear. Mens feeling about peace is often, then, no more than a fleeting sentiment, and where peace is actually enjoyed, men do not take pains to secure it.
(2) What a misery is a home without peace! How is it that it does not deeply impress itself, that any sacrifice of personal opinion and feeling is to be made rather than this blessing of peace should be forfeited?
(3) And so in the Church. Peace is its bond of union. We cannot worship in truth, we can neither edify nor be edified, with divided hearts. Yet here, again, there has been constant strife between the carnal and the spiritual. And again and again the carnal prevails. Christians do not guard and fence about the sacred enclosure of heavens peace, and yet they are dismayed when it is broken into and trampled upon!
(4) Look again at the case of nations. Is there anything more wicked than needless wars? And how few wars there are which are not needless! See what a weight of pure feeling there is in the scale against war. All the most intelligent and best members of society are against it. And yet war still goes on. Men love to listen to the hymn of the angels, Peace on earth, and go to raise the yell of demons on the battlefield.
2. The explanation is that which the gospel gives. Tracing the deep inconsistencies of human nature down to their root, it tells us the carnal mind is enmity against God. Here is the secret of our discords. Man has a spiritual part which would lead him to peaceable ways, and he has a passionate part which leads him to hate, and to the destruction of himself and of his brethren. While this strife goes on there cannot be peace. This is the secret of the deep unrest in mens souls. Ever yearning and dreaming of a blissful quiet that is so foreign to their actual condition. This is why the calm of a starlight night softens us; why the sight of a sleeping babe sometimes moves us to tears; or a strain of soft music quells some angry mood; or the face of one we love sleeping placidly in death. These sights, these sounds, speak to us of a state where the unholy war of passion has ceased, of that peace which ought to be ours, and which would be ours, were it not for this terrible foe in our own bosom, in the mind at enmity with God. This is why thousands of persons love to listen to the gospel who are far from living evangelical lives.
II. The way of peace pointed out by the gospel. Evidently, if we are to come to peace, two things are necessary; first, the spiritual part of our nature must be strengthened, and, second, the carnal or passionate part of our nature must be reduced and mortified.
1. Now the law, as St. Paul shows, was unequal to this work. The law did much to strengthen and to educate the spiritual feeling of man. It taught as the first principle of all religion--love to God and to man. But when the law came to oppose the carnal nature of man, it was found to be weak. It set up a great frowning barrier against mans unholy passions, and sin acquires greater energy when resisted, like pent-up waters behind a dam. The law, then, failed to bring us to peace with God, because it could not extinguish, though it could restrain, passion; because it could punish sin, but could not make the love of sin to cease.
2. But what the law could not do, God could do by a special act of His grace. He sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin.
(1) The life of our Lord was throughout an invitation to man to peace and rest in God. His own character was a revelation of the peacefulness of the Divine nature; and His teaching sets before us the gentle and unselfish life, we must live to be in harmony with the life of our father in heaven. But this is not enough. It is like telling a man in a fever to be cool by thinking of the frosty Caucasus, or a man at sea to be calm by thinking of a quiet harbour. It is mockery to tell a man in the midst of the commotions of his conscience that he can be at peace by looking at Jesus Christ, and following His example. It is like telling him to turn himself into a white marble statue. What the man needs is some influence that can quell the rebellion of his flesh, and allow his spirit free action.
(2) And therefore the gospel points to the death of Christ as the means of our reconciliation to God. Our Lord was put to death in an outbreak of Jewish passion which was typical of the sin of man. In the Cross the gospel teaches us to see the last most dreadful proof of what sin is, and whither it tends. And the point before us is that it produces a profound reaction upon the feelings of the sinner. When a man who has long given way to evil passions at last strikes down his friend, his passion dies with its victim. We cannot doubt that sin dies out of the heart of some men when its last fatal fruit has ripened and fallen. And something like this occurs with the man who is led to see in the death of the Lord Jesus the awful witness and fruit of his aim
(3) But is he not an object of Gods vengeance? No; the blood of Christ not only cleanses from sin, but it is the last language of God to the sinner, beseeching him to be reconciled to Him. It is the accepted compensation for sin. It does not cry cut for vengeance like that of Abel, but it has the pleading tongue of eternal mercy and love. Conclusion: It is for us to believe with all our hearts that this is the relation in which God stands to us and our sin through our Lord Jesus Christ. To have faith in this is the ground of our justification and the beginning of a peaceful and a holy life. (Prof. E. Johnson, M. A.)
Peace: a fact and a feeling
Wonderful is the power of faith. Heb_11:1-40 tells us of its marvellous exploits; but one of the most wonderful of its effects is that it brings us justification and consequent peace. It is not the creator of these things, but the channel through which these favours come to us.
I. Faith brings us into a state of peace. Naturally we have no peace. God is angry with us. Can two walk together except they be agreed? And we cannot agree with God, for the carnal mind is enmity against God, etc.
1. Before there can be peace between us and God we must with all our hearts plead guilty. To refuse to do so is contempt of court. There is mercy for a sinner, but there is no mercy for the man who will not own himself a sinner.
2. Then we must admit the justice of the Divine sentence. It would yield my heart no comfort to be told that God could wink at sin. Lasting peace must be founded upon everlasting truth.
3. And now comes in the abounding mercy of God, who, in order to our peace, finds a substitute to bear our penalty, and reveals to us this gracious fact. He puts His Son in the sinners place. Sin having been laid on Christ, He has borne it away. Faith accepts that substitution as a glorious boon of grace, and rests in it. The soul may well have peace when it has realised and received such a justification as this, for--
(1) It is a peace consistent with justice.
(2) No further demands can be made against us, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.
(3) Our acquittal is certified beyond all question, and the certificate is always producible, viz., the risen Christ, who died for our sins, and rose again for our justification.
II. Faith gives us the sense of peace.
1. The sense of peace follows upon the state of peace. We do not get peace before we are justified, neither is peace a means of justification. God justifies the ungodly.
2. This sense comes through Jesus Christ. Many children of God lose their peace in a measure, because they deal with God absolutely, but there cannot be any point of contact between absolute Deity and fallen humanity except through Christ, the appointed Mediator. Have you attempted to approach the Eternal King without His chosen ambassador? How presumptuous is your attempt! The throne of Divine sovereignty is terrible apart from the redeeming blood.
3. Some Christians say, I have no lasting peace. But peace is the right of every believer. What is there now between him and God? Sin is forgiven; righteousness is imputed. God sees him in His Son, and loves him. Why should he not be at peace? Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, said Jesus, believe also in Me. Why have you not peace, then? You have a claim to it, and you ought to enjoy it. What is the reason why you do not possess it?
(1) It is your unbelief. In proportion to your faith will your peace with God abide.
(2) Or you make a mistake as to what this peace is.
(a) You say, I am so dreadfully tempted; the devil never lets me alone. But did you ever read that you were to have peace with the devil? Never; on the contrary, you have the better promise that the Lord shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. Till then the enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman will continue.
(b) Another says, It is not the devil; it is myself that I fear. I feel the flesh revolting and rebelling. When I would do good, evil is present with me. Oh wretched man that I am! Hearken again. As the Lord hath war with Amalek forever and ever, so there is war between the spirit and the flesh so long as the two are in the same man. There is no promise of peace with the flesh, but only of peace with God.
(c) Ah, says another, I am surrounded by those that vex me. When I serve the Lord they malign and misrepresent me with scoff and slander. Yes, but did you ever dream of having peace in this world where your Lord was crucified--peace with those that hate you for His sake? Why, did He not say, If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. And this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith.
(d) Still, says one, I find every day that I sin, and I hate myself for sinning. Yes; and the Lord never said that you should have peace with sin. The more hatred of sin the better. If sin never distresses you, then God has never favoured you.
4. To come back then, we have peace with God. We enjoy peace with God because--
(1) We know He loves us. He would not have given His Son to die for us if He had not. Moreover, we feel a fervent love to Him in return.
(2) We are not afraid to go to our covenant God for all necessary things, and to seek His help in time of trouble. We have not always such settled peace with our fellow creatures, for at times we so much lack confidence in them that we could not divulge to them our troubles. Our habitude of prayer proves that we have peace with God; we should not think of praying to Him if we doubted His goodwill.
(3) We delight in God. You do not always feel Him equally near, but when He is near it is the joy of your spirit.
(4) We acquiesce in all that He does in His rough providences. A hypocrite is like a strange dog that will follow a man as long as he casts him a bone; but a true believer is like a mans own dog that will follow him when he gives him nothing. A true believer says, Shall I receive good from the hand of the Lord, and shall I not also receive evil?
(5) We look forward with confidence to the time of our departure out of this world and say, I can die, if Thou, O Lord, be with me. We are not afraid of the day of judgment because we have peace with God, and hence we are not afraid to die. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Peace with God
I. Peace with God not natural to us. It must be an attainment.
1. To be atheistic, seeming to ourselves to live in a headless universe, is not a condition in which to feel at peace.
2. To regard God as ruling in mere power and will, and as having no administration of righteousness, is to see ourselves under a sway in which it is impossible to confide.
3. To see God as holy and just, and ourselves as sinners against His holiness and justice, is to be filled with hopeless dread and enmity. Here it is that the gospel finds us.
II. To have peace with God we need--
1. To believe in His compassion; that while He is almighty and all holy, He is also gracious, and has provided for sinners a way of salvation.
2. To trust in and consent to this way of salvation, taking the Lord Jesus Christ as our Redeemer and our Master.
III. That this is a true way of peace with God is attested by the universal experience of believers.
1. There is no pretence of attaining such peace in any other way. Worldliness, philosophy, science, fail to give us peace with God.
2. In Jesus Christ, God, whom you have offended, and from whom you have become estranged, offers the hand of reconciliation. Will you extend the answering hand of faith and be at peace with Him? (C. W. Camp.)
Peace by believing
A moments contemplation would suffice to arouse any man to the terror of the position involved in being at war with God. For a subject to rebel against a powerful monarch is to incur forfeiture of life. But for a creature to be in arms against its Creator, this is an appalling thing indeed; but happy beyond all description the man who can say, I have peace with God.
I. The peace which the Christian enjoys.
1. Its basis.
(1) There is the widest possible difference between a man being just in his own eyes, and his being justified in the sight of God. Yet, perhaps no fallacy is more common than to mistake the one for the other. Then, as a natural consequence of building on a weak foundation, the structure, however fair to look upon, is insecure. The peace in which multitudes delight is merely peace with their own conscience, and not in any sense peace with God. I know of no greater contrast than there is between that peace which is a mere stagnation of thought, a lull of anxiety, or a blindness to danger, and that soul-satisfying peace which passes all understanding.
(a) Are you living in peace with God, my friend? Yes, says one, I have enjoyed peace for years. How do you get it? Well, as I was walking one day in great distress, a feeling of comfort came over me, and it has remained with me ever since. Yes, but what is the ground of your confidence; what is the doctrinal proof? Well, do not press me, says he, only this I know--I do feel happy, and ever since, I have not had any doubt. That man, if I be not mistaken, is under a delusion. Satan has said to him, Peace, peace, where there is no peace. The peace of a Christian is not such a lull of stupefaction as that. It has a reason.
(b) Here is another who says, Some years ago I never went to a place of worship. I was doing my trade in a very bad way, and now and then I took too much drink; and I thought it was time for me to turn over a new leaf, and I have done so. Now, I am not like the man you brought up just now. I think I may say I have a good ground for saying that I am at peace with God. Now, let this man be reminded that it is written, By the works of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight. All these moral things are good enough in themselves. They will be very excellent if they be placed at the top; but, if they be used as foundations, a builder might as well use tries, and slates, and chimney pots, as use these reformatory actions as a ground of dependence. All this is only peace with yourself.
(c) Some true Christians will say, I hope I am at peace with God now, for my faith is in active exercise; my love is fervent; I have delightful seasons in prayer, etc., etc., therefore I feel that I have peace with God. Oh, believer! art thou so foolish as, having begun in the Spirit by faith, to be made perfect in the flesh by your own doing? If thou puttest thy peace here upon thy graces, then there will come another day when all those graces will droop like withered flowers. To look to thy graces for peace is like going to the cistern instead of living by the fountain.
(d) I fear, too, that there are not a few who are tempted to found their confidence upon their enjoyments. If we do this, let us remember that we may have our times of agonising and fruitless prayer; we may be in the valley of despondency, or in the blacker valley of the shadow of death.
(2) The Christians conviction of his peace with God lies in this--that he is justified by faith. I was a sinner doomed to die; Christ took my place; He died for me. God says that he who believes in Christ shall be saved--I believe in Christ, therefore I am saved. He says, He that believeth on Him is not condemned. I believe on Him, therefore I am not condemned. Now this is reasoning which no logic can gainsay. There is a rebel--be is pardoned, he is at peace with his king, and a rebel no longer. There is the offending child--his father takes him, accepts him for his elder brothers sake, and he is at peace with his father. This is the basis of the Christians peace--one on which he may sleep or wake, live or die, and live eternally, without condemnation or separation from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus the Lord.
2. Its channel--through our Lord Jesus Christ.
(1) Though justification by faith is in itself a well of comfort, yet, even from that well we cannot get it, except we use Christ, who digged the well, to be the bucket to draw the water up from its depths. I will suppose that I am in doubt and fear and want to get my peace restored--how shall I seek it? Through Christ, the surety and substitute. Christ tells me that He came to save sinners; I am a sinner, therefore He came to save me.
(a) He says He can save me. This looks reasonable. He is very God, He is perfect man, He has suffered and offered a complete atonement.
(b) He tells me He is willing to save me. This also appears reasonable, for why else should He die?
(c) Then He tells me if I will trust Him, He will save me. I trust Him, and I have not the shadow of a shade of a suspicion of doubt that He will be as good as His word.
(2) Some people say we teach that man is saved by mere believing. We do. There is a poor, starving man over there. I give him bread--his life is spared. Why do not these people say this man was saved by mere eating! And here is another person who is dying of thirst, and I give him water and the man is saved by mere drinking. Why do not we drop down dead in our pews? Just stop your breath a little while and see. Surely we all live by mere breathing. All these operations of nature may be sneered at as merely this or that; and in like manner to speak disparagingly of mere believing is nonsense. And if I would get my peace made more full and perfect, having come to Christ by faith, the more I go to Christ believingly, the deeper will my peace be. If I live near to Christ I shall not know fear. Who should know fear when he is covered with the Eternal wings, and underneath him are the Everlasting arms? As Christ was the first means of giving us peace, so He must still be the golden conduit through which all peace with God must flow to our believing hearts.
3. Its certainty. I like to read these rolling sentences of Paul, without an if or a but in them--Therefore, being justified, we have peace with God. How different is this from I hope, I trust. Now where this language is genuine it deserves sympathy, but I believe in many cases it is cant. Let those who are the subjects of these doubts be cheered, but let their doubts and fears be rooted out. It is not presumption to believe what God tells you. If He says, You are justified, do not say, I hope I am. If I should say to some poor man, I will pay your rent for you, and he should say, Well, well, I hope you will, I should not feel best pleased with him. If you should say to your child, I shall buy you a new suit of clothes today, and he should say, Well, father, I sometimes hope you will, I humbly trust, I hope I may say, though I sometimes doubt and fear, yet I hope I may say I believe you, you would not encourage such a child as that in his uncomely suspicions. Why should we talk thus to our dear Father who is in heaven?
4. Its effect.
(1) Joy. Who can be at peace with God and have Him for a Father, and yet be miserable?
(2) A calm resignation, nay, a delightful acquiescence in his Fathers will. What fear is there to the man that is at peace with God? Life?--God provides for it. Death?--Christ hath destroyed it. The Grave?--Christ hath rolled away the stone and broken the seal. Affliction, tribulation, famine, peril, or the sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that hath loved us.
II. Words of counsel to those who have not this peace, or have lost it.
1. There is a man who many years ago was a professor, and who has never been easy in his conscience since he forsook the ways of God. Backslider, do you remember the time when you did feel that Christ could save, and you did trust yourself with Him? Now then, do the same tonight, and the dew of thy youth is restored unto thee. Oh! but I have forsaken Him. Lay aside thy buts and its. He bids thee come. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
2. There are those who are not backsliders exactly, but have lost their peace for a little time. Many young Christians are subject to little fits, in which their evidence gets dark and they lose their peace, Now learn from me. I find it very convenient to come every day to Christ as I came at first. You are no saint, says the devil. Well, if I am not, I am a sinner, and Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Sink or swim, there I go--other hope I have none.
3. There are those who never had peace.
(1) Do not seek peace as the first object; for, it you want peace before you get grace, you want the flower before you get the root, like children who, when they have a piece of garden given them, pluck the flowers out of their fathers bed, and put them into their own ground, and then say, What a nice garden I have got! But to their dismay, on the morrow all is withered. Better put the roots in and wait till they sprout, and then the flowers will be living ones, not borrowed ones. Do not seek after peace first. Seek after Christ first. Peace will come next.
(2) And remember, that if you put your eye on anything but Christ, or anything with Christ, so as to disturb your whole thought and attention from being directed exclusively to Him, then peace will be an impossibility to you. Do not trust your repentance, faith, feelings, knowledge, sense of need, but come because you have nothing to recommend you; because you are vile, to be pardoned; because you are black, to be washed; come, because you are penniless, to be made rich; but look for nothing else save in Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
False peace
Your peace, sinner, is that terribly prophetic calm which the traveller occasionally perceives upon the higher Alps. Everything is still. The birds suspend their notes, fly low, and cower down with fear. The hum of bees among the flowers is hushed. A horrible stillness rules the hour, as if death had silenced all things by stretching over them his awful sceptre, Perceive ye not what is surely at hand? The tempest is preparing, the lightning will soon cast abroad its flames of fire. Earth will rock with thunder blasts; granite peaks will be dissolved; all nature will tremble beneath the fury of the storm. Yours is that solemn calm today, sinner. Rejoice not in it, for the hurricane of wrath is coming, the whirlwind and the tribulation which shall sweep you away and utterly destroy you. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Peace of pardon, not a mere forgetfulness
I have spilled the ink over a bill, and so have blotted it till it can hardly be read; but this is quite another thing from having the debt blotted out, for that cannot be till payment is made. So a man may blot his sins from his memory and quiet his mind with false hopes, but the peace which this will bring him is widely different from that which arises from Gods forgiveness of sin through the satisfaction which Jesus made in His atonement. Our blotting is one thing; Gods blotting out is something far higher. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Peace desired
I once knew a young lady very rich in earthly gifts; she had youth, beauty, wealth; but she had not the best gifts, the peace that Jesus gives. She was not in the habit of visiting the poor, but one day she went with a friend to see an old woman who had been confined to bed for thirty years, suffering from a painful complaint, and was apparently near death. While the young lady stood pitying by, she was struck by hearing no word of repining or impatience. The aged Christian spoke of happiness and peace, the mercies she had experienced, the joys she was so soon to know. The contrast was great between these two--the one in the flush of youth, health, prosperity! the other so different. But the young lady turned to her friend, and said, I would gladly change places with that poor creature to have her peace. The saint went to her rest, but the lesson was not lost; the young lady sought for peace in Jesus, and found it. She is now a bright example of a consistent Christian, and treading in that path which shineth more and more unto the perfect day. (Teachers Treasury.)
Christian peace
One who professes to have no settled religious beliefs said to me a few days ago, The best argument for religion I know is that it brings harmony into the lives of those who are truly religious; and I believe many would give almost all they have for Christian peace.
Peace may exist in the absence of joy
Gods hand may be laid very heavily upon us, but faith interprets all as administered in love. Therefore, while joy may be absent, peace may reign supreme in the soul. We should not depreciate Christian joy. To rejoice with joy unspeakable is our blessed privilege. But peace is that which our Saviour especially bequeathed as the peculiar inheritance of His children while on earth.
Peace with God
God did not begin war against us; we began the war against Him, and it is high time that this farce of the finite struggling against the Infinite were ended. We are tired of the war. We want to back out. But how shall we get a cessation of this contest? By going up into the mount of God and plucking olive branches. What mount? Calvary. Modern travellers say it is only an insignificant hill; but I persist in calling it a mount, because, through the grandeur of its meaning, it overtops the very highest of all earthly elevations. The Alps and the Himalayas are less than ant hills compared with it. In the very excavation on Calvary where the Cross was once set, afterward the olive was planted, and it is green, and thrifty, and foliaged today, and I strip it off, and I wave it before this assemblage, crying, Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, if there is any joyful thought enough to overthrow ones equilibrium, that is the thought. It may be a matter of very little importance what President Grant, or Queen Victoria, or King William thinks of anyone; but to be brought into close, and intimate, and hearty, and glowing relations with the God of a round universe--that makes a hallelujah seem stupid. If we had continued this fight against God for ten thousand years, we could not have captured so much as a sword, or taken so much as a cavalry stirrup, or wrenched off so much as a chariot wheel of His omnipotence; but God and all heavens artillery come over on our side at the first swing of the olive branch. Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is no peace in any other way. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Peace through Christ alone
We could relate many heart-moving incidents, but will here only give one which happened to him in the Black Forest. We were driven by a fearful storm to take refuge in a small house, where we found a woman sitting at a table clad in deep mourning, and evidently in great sorrow. Although the Ave Maria was sounding from the neighbouring tower of the village church, she was not praying, but only kept on silently weeping to herself. In answer to our inquiries as to the cause of her sorrow, she told us that she had no rest, and did not know how things stood between her and God Under the guidance of her priest, she had done all that could be thought of to obtain ease of mind. She had placed great candles on the altar, had observed all the fasts and joined in all the processions for the benefit of the Holy Father, and done many other things of the same sort, but all had failed to give her peace of heart. Then came an awful trial in the death of her dear husband, who was killed while employed as a wood cutter, by the fall of a gigantic fir tree. The Jesuit Father R--told her that this was the expiation of her sin, and that now she could be at rest. But I was not, and I am not, sighed the poor deeply-troubled woman. We soon found that she knew nothing of Christ except that He was the son of the Virgin and a great saint, whom one ought to invoke alternately with the other intercessors. With what delight this poor soul now absorbed the good news of the Saviour of sinners, and how quickly she understood Him whom she had long loved without knowing it, they alone can form a conception who know what it is to have been blind, to have cried for the light, and to have had their eyes opened. (Pastor Funcke.)
Immediate results of justification
1. Here we come to a main turning point in the development of the apostles teaching. One chapter whose title might be, An exposition and defence of justification by faith in Christ without the deeds of the Law, is closed. Another is about to open whose title might be, The results of justification in the experience of the believer. To unfold these results; to show that, so far from the new teaching encouraging men in sin, it affords the only security for practical holiness; to trace the growth of a believers spiritual life from the moment of his justification till it ends in the glorious liberty of the children of God;--this continues to be his theme down to the end of the eighth chapter.
2. In the opening paragraph of this section St. Paul makes it plain that Gods gospel way of justifying a sinner on his believing affords the most ample ground to hope for the ultimate complete salvation of every believer. How that hope is to be realised the apostle does not as yet say. Into the connection between a justified state and a holy life, he does not as yet enter. Taking his stand simply on the bare fact of justification, he states that he who accepts it cannot help expecting triumphantly the fullest possible deliverance one day into the glory of God.
3. Hope is the keyword of this section, therefore; exultant hope of future glory.
I. Our hope reposes on this new relation, established betwixt us and God, that we are at peace with Him (verses 1, 2).
1. This peace with or with respect to God is probably neither our changed feelings toward God in Christ, nor our peace of conscience when we are sure of pardon, nor that deep peace of the spirit which is Christs bequest and which passes all understanding; but the relationship out of which all this springs. Friendly affections grow out of pacific relations.
2. The change from an armed to a peaceful attitude we owe in the first instance to the atoning work of the Son. Not that God could hate His sinful creature. But He does hate sin--the one thing which He hath not made. And our sin, so long as it was unexpiated, forced Him into an attitude of reluctant antagonism. Antagonism is not hatred, nor even dislike; it may co-exist with the most tender affection. After Absalom had assassinated his half-brother, the sorrowing king and father refused to receive the murderer at court, although all the while his heart longed to go forth to his favourite. So were we to God as that misguided fratricide was to David. Apart from the atonement He could not speak to us words of friendship; while we, on our part, were enemies in our minds through wicked works--disliking God and resenting His claims.
3. But see what a mighty revolution Christs death wrought! The obstacle which before had legally barred a sinful mans admission into friendship, was taken out of the way. So soon as we are penitent believers, we have an access into this favour of our Father (verse 1); and standing in that grace, it is now possible for us to hope that we shall see and share the glory of our God (verse 2).
II. Our hope is not impaired but confirmed by our present tribulation. It is far off, that glory of God which we hope for. And the present is a life of trouble. Does not this then put our boastful hope in a coming glory to shame? No, lifes trouble confirms and increases our hope; because it works in us a steadfast endurance in the exercise of our faith--a holding on and holding out to the end. The Christian who thus perseveres under trouble is an approved or accredited believer. Having stood that test of trial, his faith is found genuine; and as the tested Christian finds his faith to prove itself thus genuine, must not his hope wax only so much the more confident? As the hope to be one day glorified with the glory of God is a theme for triumph, so the believer learns to transfer his exultant triumph even to those afflictions which in the long run minister to his future glory, and that strangest of all strange paradoxes on Christian lips comes true (verse 3).
III. This triumphant hope in which God is yet to do for, us, finds a still more sure foundation of fact in what God has already done to prove the greatness of His love. This is the argument which fills the remainder of the section (verses 5-11). It is introduced in the words of verse 5. This love of God for us which His Spirit pours out like a rich fruitful tide within the believers heart, is that quite unparalleled love evinced in Christs death for us while we were yet sinners (verses 6-8). And the force of the argument is, If when we were hostile, God reconciled us by His Sons death, how much now when we are His friends, will He save us by His Sons life? Paul regards all that still remains to be done for a believer in order to fit him for final glory as an inferior test of Divine kindness, costing less, and therefore less improbable, than what God already did in the sacrifice of Christs life. He argues from the greater thing to the less. It is a much higher effort of generosity to reconcile an enemy than to save a friend. Love was put then to its hardest task. It did not fail in that thing which was greatest; why should it fail in a less thing? The conquering, uplifted Christ, regnant in celestial bliss, with matchless resources at command, His omnipotent breath penetrating His Church--He will not withdraw His hand from the easy completion of a task of which the first part has been already performed ill tears and blood. Conclusion: Only seize the religious meaning of the death of Jesus Christ, and everything puts on a new face. It did so to St. Paul. This world was become a new world to him since Christ had died. Before that decease was accomplished at Jerusalem, the human race lay sunk in hopeless guilt, jailered by the inexpiable vengeance of heaven, with the blackness of death shrouding its hereafter. But now, what a change!
1. God is changed. Whereas there lay on our hearts only the intolerable sense of infinite disapproval and displeasure, now we have peace with Him. He is just, and yet He justifies us through His Sons expiation.
2. This life is changed. Its troubles are still upon us, but before they seemed to be only presages of a vengeance to come. Now we are Gods friends, and afflictions can be nothing worse than experiments upon our confidence in Him; a well-meant discipline vindicating the sincerity of our attachment to Him, whom, though He slay us, we still can trust. When we have withstood such a test, we can even turn round and rejoice in it.
3. The future is changed. The leaden pall is lifted which overhung mans existence. With God on his side, a man learns to have boundless anticipations. Who will say that anything is too much to hope for a creature for whom God was willing to die? (J. Oswald Dykes, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Chapter 12
Chapter 12
PEACE, LOVE, AND JOY FOR THE JUSTIFIED
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Rom_5:1-11
WE reached a pause in the Apostles thought with the close of the last paragraph. We may reverently imagine, as in spirit we listen to his dictation, that a pause comes also in his work; that he is silent, and Tertius puts down the pen, and they spend their hearts awhile on worshipping recollection and realisation. The Lord delivered up; His people justified; the Lord risen again, alive for evermore-here was matter for love, joy, and wonder.
But the Letter must proceed, and the argument has its fullest and most wonderful developments yet to come. It has now already expounded the tremendous need of justifying mercy, for every soul of man. It has shown how faith, always and only, is the way to appropriate that mercy-the way of Gods will, and manifestly also in its own nature the way of deepest fitness. We have been allowed to see faith in illustrative action, in Abraham, who by faith, absolutely, without the least advantage of traditional privilege, received justification, with the vast concurrent blessings which it carried. Lastly we have heard St. Paul dictate to Tertius, for the Romans and for us, those summarising words {Rom_4:25} in which we now have Gods own certificate of the triumphant efficacy of that Atoning Work, which sustains the Promise in order that the Promise may sustain us believing.
We are now to approach the glorious theme of the Life of the Justified. This is to be seen not only as a state whose basis is the reconciliation of the Law, and whose gate and walls are the covenant Promise. It is to appear as a state warmed with eternal Love; irradiated with the prospect of glory. In it the man, knit up with Christ his Head, his Bridegroom, his all, yields himself with joy to the God who has received him. In the living power of the heavenly Spirit, who perpetually delivers him from himself, he obeys, prays, works, and suffers, in a liberty which is only not yet that of heaven, and in which he is maintained to the end by Him who has planned his full personal salvation from eternity to eternity.
It has been the temptation of Christians sometimes to regard the truth and exposition of Justification as if there were a certain hardness and as it were dryness about it; as if it were a topic rather for the schools than for life. If excuses have ever been given for such a view, they must come from other quarters than the Epistle to the Romans. Christian teachers, of many periods, may have discussed Justification as coldly as if they were writing a law book. Or again they may have examined it as if it were a truth terminating in itself, the Omega as well as the Alpha of salvation; and then it has been misrepresented, of course. For the Apostle certainly does not discuss it drily; he lays deep indeed the foundations of Law and Atonement, but he does it in the manner of a man who is not drawing the plan of a refuge, but calling his reader from the tempest into what is not only a refuge but a home. And again he does not discuss it in isolation. He spends his fullest, largest, and most loving expositions on its intense and vital connection with concurrent truths. He is about now to take us, through a noble vestibule, into the sanctuary of the life of the accepted, the life of union, of surrender, of the Holy Ghost.
Justified therefore on terms of faith, we have peace towards our God, we possess in regard of Him the "quietness and assurance" of acceptance, through our Lord Jesus Christ, thus delivered up, and raised up, for us; through whom we have actually found our introduction, our free admission, by our faith, into this grace, this unearned acceptance for Anothers sake, in which we stand, instead of falling ruined, sentenced, at the tribunal. And we exult, not with the sinful "boasting" of the legalist, but in hope (literally, "on hope," as reposing on the promised prospect) of the glory of our God, the light of the heavenly vision and fruition of our Justifier, and the splendour of an eternal service of Him in that fruition. Nor only so, but we exult too in our tribulations, with a better fortitude than the Stoics artificial serenity, knowing that the tribulation works out, develops, patient persistency, as it occasions proof after proof of the power of God in our weakness, and thus generates the habit of reliance; and then the patient persistency develops proof, brings out in experience, as a proved fact, that through Christ we are not what we were; and then the proof develops hope, solid and definite expectation of continuing grace and final glory, and, in particular, of the Lords Return; and the hope does not shame, does not disappoint; it is a hope sure and steadfast, for it is the hope of those who now know that they are objects of eternal Love; because the love of our God has been poured out in our hearts; His love to us has been as it were diffused through our consciousness, poured out in a glad experience as rain from the cloud, as floods from the rising spring, through the Holy Spirit that was given to us.
Here first is mentioned explicitly, in the Apostles argument (we do not Rom_1:4 as in the argument), the blessed Spirit, the Lord the Holy Ghost. Hitherto the occasion for the mention has hardly arisen. The considerations have been mainly upon the personal guilt of the sinner, and the objective fact of the Atonement, and the exercise of faith, of trust in God, as a genuine personal act of man. With a definite purpose, we may reverently think, the discussion of faith has been kept thus far clear of the thought of anything lying behind faith, of any "grace" giving faith. For whether or no faith is the gift of God, it is most certainly the act of man; none should assert this more decidedly than those who hold (as we do) that Eph_2:8 does teach that where saving faith is, it is there because God has "given" it. But how does He "give" it? Not, surely, by implanting a new faculty, but by so opening the soul to God in Christ that the divine magnet effectually draws the man to a willing repose upon such a God. But the man does this, as an act, himself. He trusts God as genuinely, as personally, as much with his own faculty of trust, as he trusts a man whom he sees to be quite trustworthy and precisely fit to meet an imperative need. Thus it is often the work of the evangelist and the teacher to insist upon the duty rather than the grace of faith; to bid men rather thank God for faith when they have believed than wait for the sense of an afflatus before believing. And is this not what St. Paul does here? At this point of his argument, and not before, he reminds the believer that his possession of peace, of happiness, of hope, has been attained and realised not, ultimately, of himself, but through the working of the Eternal Spirit. The insight into mercy, into a propitiation provided by divine love, and so into the holy secret of the divine love itself, has been given him by the Holy Ghost, who has taken of the things of Christ, and shown them to him, and secretly handled his "heart" so that the fact of the love of God is a part of experience at last. The man has been told of his great need, and of the sure and open refuge, and has stepped through its peaceful gate in the act of trusting the message and the will of God. Now he is asked to look round, to look back, and bless the hand which, when he was outside in the naked field of death, opened his eyes to see, and guided his will to choose.
What a retrospect it is! Let us trace it from the first words of this paragraph again. First, here is the sure fact of our acceptance, and the reason of it, and the method. "Therefore"; let not that word be forgotten. Our Justification is no arbitrary matter, whose causelessness suggests an illusion, or a precarious peace. "Therefore"; it rests upon an antecedent, in the logical chain of divine facts. We have read that antecedent, Rom_4:25; "Jesus our Lord was given up because of our transgressions, and was raised up because of our justification." We assented to that fact; we have accepted Him, only and altogether, in this work of His. Therefore we are justified, δικαιωθεντες, placed by an act of divine Love, working in the line of divine Law, among those whom the Judge accepts, that He may embrace them as Father. Then, in this possession of the "peace" of our acceptance, thus led in (προσαγωγη), through the gate of the promise, with the footstep of faith, we find inside our Refuge far more than merely safety. We look up from within the blessed walls, sprinkled with atoning blood, and we see above them the hope of glory, invisible outside. And we turn to our present life within them (for all our life is to be lived within that broad sanctuary now), and we find resources provided there for a present as well as a prospective joy. We address ourselves to the discipline of the place; for it has its discipline; the refuge is home, but it is also school; and we find, when we begin to try it, that the discipline is full of joy. It brings out into a joyful consciousness the power we now have, in Him who has accepted us, in Him who is our Acceptance, to suffer and to serve in love. Our life has become a life not of peace only, but of the hope which animates peace, and makes it flow "as a river." From hour to hour we enjoy the never-disappointing hope of "grace for grace," new grace for the next new need; and beyond it, and above it, the certainties of the hope of glory. To drop our metaphor of the sanctuary for that of the pilgrimage, we find ourselves upon a pathway, steep and rocky, but always mounting into purer air, and so as to show us nobler prospects; and at the summit-the pathway will be continued, and transfigured, into the golden street of the City; the same track, but within the gate of heaven.
Into all this the Holy Ghost has led us. He has been at the heart of the whole internal process. He made the thunder of the Law articulate to our conscience. He gave us faith by manifesting Christ. And, in Christ, He has "poured out in our hearts the love of God."
For now the Apostle takes up that word, "the Love of God," and holds it to our sight, and we see in its pure glory no vague abstraction, but the face, and the work, of Jesus Christ. Such is the context into which we now advance. He is reasoning on; "For Christ, when we still were weak." He has set justification before us in its majestic lawfulness. But he has now to expand its mighty love, of which the Holy Ghost has made us conscious in our hearts. We are to see in the Atonement not only a guarantee that we have a valid title to a just acceptance. We are to see in it the love of the Father and the Son, so that not our security only, but our bliss, may be full.
For Christ, we still being weak (gentle euphemism for our utter impotence, our guilty inability to meet the sinless claim of the Law of God), in season, in the fulness of time, when the ages of precept and of failure had done their work, and man had learnt something to purpose of the lesson of self-despair, for the ungodly-died. "For the ungodly," "concerning them," "with reference to them," that is to say, in this context of saving mercy, "in their interests, for their rescue, as their propitiation." "The ungodly," or, more literally still, without the article, "ungodly ones"; a designation general and inclusive for those for whom He died. Above {Rom_4:5} we saw the word used with a certain limitation, as of the worst among the sinful. But here, surely, with a solemn paradox, it covers the whole field of the Fall. The ungodly here are not the flagrant and disreputable only; they are all who are not in harmony with God; the potential as well as the actual doers of grievous sin. For them "Christ died"; not "lived," let us remember, but "died." It was a question not of example, nor of suasion, nor even of utterances of divine compassion. It was a question of law and guilt; and it was to be met only by the deathsentence and the death fact; such death as He died of whom, a little while before, this same Correspondent had written to the converts of Galatia; {Gal_3:13} "Christ bought us out from the curse of the Law, when He became a curse for us." All the untold emphasis of the sentence, and of the thought, lies here upon those last words, upon each and all of them, "for ungodly ones-He died." The sequel shows this to us; he proceeds: For scarcely, with difficulty, and in rare instances, for a just man will one die; "scarcely," he will not say "never," for, for the good man, the man answering in some measure the ideal of gracious and not only of legal goodness, perhaps someone actually ventures to die. But God commends, as by a glorious contrast, His love, "His" as above all current human love, "His own love," towards us, because while we were still sinners, and as such repulsive to the Holy, One, Christ for us did die.
We are not to read this passage as if it were a statistical assertion as to the facts of human love and its possible sacrifices. The moral argument will not be affected if we are able, as we shall be, to adduce cases where unregenerate man has given even his life to save the life of one, or of many, to whom he is not emotionally or naturally attracted. All that is necessary to St. Pauls tender plea for the love of God is the certain fact that the cases of death even on behalf of one who morally deserves a great sacrifice are relatively very, very few. The thought of merit is the ruling thought in the connection. He labours to bring out the sovereign Lovingkindness, which went even to the length and depth of death, by reminding us, that, whatever moved it, it was not moved, even in the lowest imaginable degree, by any merit, no, nor by any "congruity," in us. And yet we were sought, and saved. He who planned the salvation, and provided it, was the eternal Lawgiver and Judge. He who loved us is Himself eternal Right, to whom all our wrong is unutterably repellent. What then is He as Love, who, being also Right, stays not till He has given His Son to the death of the Atonement?
So we have indeed a warrant to "believe the love of God". {1Jn_4:16} Yes, to believe it. We look within us, and it is incredible. If we have really seen ourselves, we have seen ground for a sorrowful conviction that He who is eternal Right must view us with aversion. But if we have really seen Christ, we have seen ground for-not feeling at all, it may be, at this moment, but-believing that God is Love, and loves us. What is it to believe Him? It is to take Him at His word; to act altogether not upon our internal consciousness but upon His warrant. We look at the Cross, or rather, we look at the crucified. Lord Jesus in His Resurrection; we read at His feet these words of His Apostle; and we go away to take God at His assurance that we, unlovely, are beloved.
"My child," said a dying French saint, as she gave a last embrace to her daughter, "I have loved you because of what you are; my heavenly Father, to whom I go, has loved me malgre moi."
And how does the divine reasoning now advance? "From glory to glory"; from acceptance by the Holy One, who is Love, to present and endless preservation in His Beloved One. Therefore much more, justified now in His blood, as it were "in" its laver of ablution, or again "within" its circle of sprinkling as it marks the precincts of our inviolable sanctuary, we. shall be kept safe through Him, who now lives to administer the blessings of His death, from the wrath, the wrath of God, in its present imminence over the head. of the unreconciled, and in its final fall "in that day." For if, being enemies, with no initial love to Him who is Love, nay, when we were hostile to His claims, and as such subject to the hostility of His Law, we were reconciled to our God through the death of His Son (God coming to judicial peace with us, and we brought to submissive peace with Him), much more, being reconciled, we shall be kept safe in His life, in the life of the Risen One who now lives for us, and in us, and we in Him. Nor, only so, but we shall be kept exulting too in our God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom now we have received this reconciliation.
Here, by anticipation, he indicates already the mighty issues of the act of Justification, in our life of Union with the Lord who died for us, and lived again. In the sixth chapter this will be more fully unfolded; but he cannot altogether reserve it so long. As he has advanced from the law aspect of our acceptance to its love aspect, so now with this latter he gives us at once the life aspect, our vital incorporation with our Redeemer, our part and lot in His resurrection-life. Nowhere in this whole Epistle is that subject expounded so fully as in the later Epistles, Colossians and Ephesians; the Inspirer led His servant all over that region then, in his Roman prison, but not now. But He had brought him into the region from the first, and we see it here present to his thought, though not in the foreground of his discourse. "Kept safe in His life"; not "by" His life, but "in" His life. We are livingly knit to Him the Living One. From one point of view we are accused men, at the bar, wonderfully transformed, by the Judges provision, into welcomed and honoured friends of the Law and the Lawgiver. From another point of view we are dead men, in the grave, wonderfully vivified, and put into a spiritual connection with the mighty life of our Lifegiving Redeemer. The aspects are perfectly distinct. They belong to different orders of thought. Yet they are in the closest and most genuine relation. The Justifying Sacrifice procures the possibility of our regeneration into the Life of Christ. Our union by faith with the Lord who died and lives brings us into actual part and lot in His justifying merits. And our part and lot in those merits, our "acceptance in the Beloved," assures us again of the permanence of the mighty Love which will maintain us in our part and lot "in His life." This is the view of the matter which is before us here.
Thus the Apostle meets our need on every side. He shows us the holy Law satisfied for us. He shows us the eternal love liberated upon us. He shows us the Lords own Life clasped around us, imparted to us; "our life is hid in God with Christ, who is our Life". {Col_3:3-4} Shall we not "exult in God through Him"?
And now we are to learn something of that great Covenant-Headship, in which we and He are one.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1–5 1–5. Therefore being justified by faith. Paul has just…
1–5. Therefore being justified by faith. Paul has just shown that men are counted righteous before God, not through obedience to the law, but through faith in Christ. Not law, but faith justifies. The faith that justifies is (1) a faith in Christ; (2) a faith of the heart (Rom. 10:9) which brings the whole life into obedience (Rom. 1:5). Peace with God. While sinners, we are rebels against God. When our rebellion ceases and we are forgiven we are at peace. This blessed peace with God, which brings peace to the soul, is through Jesus Christ.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 Rom_5:1.—We have peace, for Christ is our peace. Several…
CRITICAL NOTES
Rom_5:1.—We have peace, for Christ is our peace. Several manuscripts translate, “Let us have peace,” adopted by the R.V. Justification here spoken of as an act already done—i.e., when we laid hold of Christ by faith. Faith is the key of knowledge, and makes us children of God (Clem. Rom.).
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Rom_5:2.—Implies dignity, firmness to resist, preparation for further walk and work. δόξης τοῦ Θεοῦ—the expression denotes the heavenly existence of God, to share which is the highest good of the creature.
Rom_5:4.—Patience equals patient endurance. Not so much experience as proof; affliction is our touchstone.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Rom_5:1-4
Happy fruits.—There are luscious fruits which grow on the spiritual tree which God has planted in the wilderness of this world—planted for the benefit of His believing children; and yet how much of their lives is passed in a state of spiritual leanness. The fruits cannot ripen and fall to he ground in a state of decay, for nothing can be lost in God’s material or moral world—lost to us for the time, not lost in the greatness and goodness of the divine purposes. Why should they be lost? Why should the golden fruit ripen and not refresh our parched natures? Why should we not go in faith and gather the rich grapes of the spiritual Eschol, and sweeten the bitterness and lessen the feverish heat of our wearisome earth-lives? What advantage is there in being justified if we do not enjoy peace? Let us seek to realise the full extent of our Christian privileges. The criminal is acquitted—let him not move through life as if he were afraid of the policeman; the dead has been brought to life—let him not wear the cerements of the tomb; the spiritual marriage has been consummated—let the bride deck herself with jewels. The eternal Father has welcomed the returned son—let him wear the best robe, and feast on the rich viands which paternal love has provided. What are the happy fruits of justification? They are:—
I. Peace.—This is the fruit in the divine intention and purpose, but too often only partially realised in the human experience, therefore may the apostle exhort, “Let us have peace.” May we thus amplify the apostolic injunction.
1. Let us possess ourselves in peace. If God be reconciled, why should we live and move as if He were unreconciled? We too often act as if the method of reconciliation had been forced from God, and as if He would relent and take back the offers of pardon and of peace. God relent? It was God’s loving heart that moved towards the children of sin and of misery. We lose much of peace by losing sight of the gracious thought that God’s love anticipated man’s sin, and provided the remedy. Let us have peace by taking large views of the love of God. Let us have peace by fully believing that the method of justification by faith is perfectly answerable to the divine requirements, and is fully harmonious with the divine nature.
2. Let us develop peace. We sing, “Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?” Perhaps the words are idealistic. Perfect peace, in a nature racked, torn asunder, distorted, disfigured, by sin? Perfect peace, where chaos, dark confusion, and discords have dwelt? Perfect peace, where every power and faculty of the nature have been so long working in a contrary direction that they look as if any kind of peace were an impossibility? Happy soul that can by an act of faith enter into perfect peace! But we believe it to be a goal, perhaps never reached till we come to the land of perfect peace. Peace must grow; it can be developed.
3. Let us value peace. Let us have peace, not as a possession from which we would gladly part, but as a possession in which we rejoice, and which we hold dearer than material life. Who does not value peace? Let us show our high estimate by making sacrifices for its development. Let us assiduously train and practise the powers and faculties of our natures so that not one sound may be heard out of tune, and all may in glad union set forth the sublime anthem of peace.
4. Let us move joyfully through life as the children of peace,—peace the calm mother; joy the pleasant daughter: our joyfulness not of a boisterous character—a peaceful joy—a calm, unruffled happiness.
II. Gracious boldness.—Jesus Christ, our elder brother, takes us by the hand and conducts us into the glorious temple of peace, where we stand in the presence of the Holy of Holies, and see it illuminated and glorified with the sweet light of the divine favour. By the sin of the first Adam we are estranged from God. By the mediatorial work of the Second Adam we are brought into a state of friendship with God, and may have holy boldness, constant access into the divine presence. Access to God! How great the thought! How vast the privilege! Sinful men are raised high as the unsinning angels.
“The sons of ignorance and night
May dwell in the eternal light,
Through the eternal Love.”
III. Joyful expectation.—The believer is one who exercises foresight and forethought. He looks before and behind. He looks behind at his sins, and gratitude rises in his soul, as he sees them cast into the depths of the sea. He stands, a forgiven, a peaceful soul, between the behind and the before. And he looks forward with joyful hope to the glory of God. Glory will consummate and crown what grace has begun. Sublime hope!—the glory of God. Joyful expectation! To behold the glory of the All-glorious is a wonderfully entrancing idea; but, oh! can it be that the inglorious, the base, shall share in that glory? We shrink from the thought of final extinction when we consider that there may be the sweet prospect of rising to the high abode of the eternal light. Well may the apostle sing, “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God”! Dry logic could not restrain the ardour of his impassioned nature; and on the wings of rhetoric he rises to taste the outcoming influences of the upper paradise. In hope of the glory of God he trod the pathway of human suffering with heroic endurance. He counted all things but dross. Perils manifold, trials many, tribulations sore, were of no account to a spirit braced and inspired by the hope of the glory of God. Oh for this hope to be a practical force in our prosaic lives! Oh for this sweet light to pierce and dispel the murky clouds that too oft darken our lives! Why live in gloom when bright skies stretch ever our heads? Why dwell in a dungeon when we can escape and walk the glorious terraces whence we may behold the splendid outstretching landscapes of infinite love and glory.
IV. The sorrow which promotes joy.—We still hear the sound of the rollers in the early Church, and they rolled out in noble form patience, experience, hope. Sometimes we think that there is no golden grain equal to that which was thrashed out by the process of tribulation which was carried on by persecution. Perhaps another Paul may come, with keen vision, to find out the nobility, the heroism, of suffering souls in modern times. How few of us can say we glory in tribulations! Well, even the apostle did not say that. He gloried in tribulations as a means to an end; he welcomed sorrow, not in and of itself, but as the promoter of joy—the joy which hope ever inspires. What a glorious ascending scale—tribulation, patience, experience, hope! The sorrow of the world works despair and destruction; the sorrow of the heroic nature works hope and eternal glory. Sorrow has its important mission in the spiritual economies. Heart throbs may be beating out sweetest music. Tears may not be shed in vain. Ah, there will be no more pain, no more tribulations, in heaven! But may there not be the chastened yet joyful remembrance of the glorious moral work which pain and tribulation have done in time? The tears of time may become glistening pearls in the eternal crown. There are tears which are like petrifying streams, hardening the nature from which they flow. There are tears which are like the dewdrops collected from the surrounding atmosphere by the flower to its enrichment. The troubles of earth may be the root forces out of which grow the unfading flowers of the better paradise. Certainly we read “tribulation worketh patience; patience, experience; and experience, hope.” In the vale of sorrow let us gather the seeds of undying joy. Let us constantly enter the divine presence chamber, and in that sacred enclosure try to learn and understand the wide significance of all that happens in us and about us, and as the understanding grows and the sacred light increases we shall more and more rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Connection between faith and peace—
1. If there be one doctrine of more primary importance than another, it is that which relates to the question of our justification before God. Disguise it as he will, there is not a rational man who feels himself on terms of solid confidence with the Being who made and who sustains him. There is not one of them who can look God fully and fearlessly in the face, and say of Him, He is my friend. There is a lurking suspicion about him, in virtue of which the creature shrinks from the Creator, and flies away from the thought of Him, to such perishable vanities as may grant him temporary relief or occupation. Conceive his intercourse with the visible world to be in some way suspended, and the invisible God to draw near by some convincing manifestation, and he would not feel at ease or comfort in His presence. Let the feeling be as deep and inexplicable as it may, still is terror at God the real and the powerful and the constant feeling of nature. There is the consciousness of guilt. In these circumstances a restoration to the divine favour must be a question as big with interest to man as the question of a passage from death unto life. It stands identified with the main object of his existence. If it remain unsettled, all theology is superfluous and but the mockery of a heartless speculation. Let us, in the first place, explain the meaning of the term “justify”; in the second place, show how it is that we are justified by faith; in the third place, how it is that by this faith we have peace with God; and lastly, point your attention more particularly to Jesus Christ as the medium of conveyance through which we obtain so inestimable a blessing. We may then conclude with a few such observations as the whole topic is fitted to suggest. To justify a man, in the evangelical sense of the term, we cannot possibly make out a plea grounded on the fact of his own personal innocence; but still a plea is found, in virtue of which justice requires that he should be treated as an innocent person. God not only forbears to treat him as a subject of condemnation, but He treats him as a subject for the positive distribution of His favours. The man from an object of wrath becomes an object of fatherly affection. Let us now, in the second place, endeavour to explain how it is that we are justified by faith. He who is justified is in possession of a discharge from the penalties of a broken law and of a right to the rewards of an honoured and of a fulfilled law. But faith did not work out this discharge: faith barely imports these privileges from the quarter in which they are framed, and thus brings them into contact with the person of the believer. Christ reared the foundation—man leans upon it. Faith, though neither the procuring cause nor the meritorious ground of justification, is indispensable to it; and just as much so as the striking out of a window is to the lighting of an apartment. It is the medium of conveyance through which God hath ordained that all the blessings, purchased and wrought for us by the Saviour of sinners, shall come into contact and appropriation with the sinner’s soul. Faith is no faith at all if it embrace not the whole testimony of God. But the benefits annexed to faith are various. There is forgiveness promised to it; there is the plea and the reward of righteousness promised to it; there is strength for holy obedience promised to it But there is not merely a connection between the faith of the sinner and the cessation of God’s enmity against him, which is the first sense that we have given to the term of peace; there is also a connection between the faith of the sinner and a sensation of peace, which thereupon enters into the sinner’s bosom. He, obtains peace and joy in believing. Such are the truths of the Christian revelation, that, in the single act of looking outwardly upon them, there is a peace which enters into the looker’s mind along with his faith. There is a peace in the bare exercise of believing. The truths themselves are fitted to convey peace into the heart at the very moment that they are recognised to be truths.—Dr. Chalmers.
Rom_5:1-2. The believer’s blessings.—Having clearly put before us the great Christian doctrine of justification by faith in Jesus Christ, St. Paul here dwells upon the happy results which follow a hearty reception of it.
I. A brief but comprehensive view of the blessings secured to the true believer.—Blessings throughout his whole existence—past, present, future.
1. The past. He may look back upon his years gone by and see them stained by many sins, but they are all forgiven. They have been laid upon the Lamb of God (1Pe_2:24), atoned for by the all-sufficient sacrifice, blotted out from the divine remembrance. He has peace—peace with God, “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.”
2. The present. He may consider his present position and see that, weak as he is in himself, and without anything of his own upon which he can rely, in the covenant of grace he has a present and abiding security. The upholding power of the Father (1Pe_1:5); the Son’s all-prevailing intercession (Rom_8:34); the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Rom_8:15); the sure promises of God’s word,—all, all testify to the security of the foundation on which he stands.
3. The future. He may look forward into the unknown days of his future life—yes, even into the countless ages of eternity, though much is unknown and dark to his mortal eyes. The light of hope shines brightly on his course,—a hope that will never deceive (Rom_5:5); a hope that is an anchor of the soul sure and steadfast (Heb_6:19); a hope that fastens on the heavenly inheritance. He rejoices in the hope of the glory of God.
II. Let us mark well that all these blessings are obtained for us by the Lord Jesus Christ, and secured to us in Him—in Him alone.—To possess them we must believe in Him (Joh_6:35, etc.), receive Him (Joh_1:12), have Him (1Jn_5:12), be found in Him (Php_3:9), abide in Him (Joh_15:5). If our faith justifies us, it is because it is the hand which lays hold on Jesus, the Lord our righteousness. If we have peace with God, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our peace (Eph_2:14); if we are standing safe in the covenant of grace, it is by Jesus that we have access into it; if we are rejoicing in hope of the glory of God, it is the same almighty Saviour Himself who is our hope (1Ti_1:1).—Dr. Jacob.
Justification by faith.—Man stands condemned at the bar of God. Can God be just and yet acquit the guilty? The gospel says, “Yes; man may be acquitted, or justified.”
I. Justification by faith.—What is it, and how effected? Justification just means getting put right with God; and we can be put right with God only by faith in the work of God’s Son for us. It is a gratuitous act. Christ says to the guilty, “You are unable to save yourself, yet your salvation is possible.” How? Not by propitiating offended deity or patching up a broken fellowship. Not by works; the law condemns. The ground of acquittal from the condemnation of the law is the imputed righteousness of Christ. It is received by faith, and faith itself is God’s gift; hence boasting is excluded. The guilty are acquitted in a way that humbles pride. Self-righteous efforts are of no help, but rather a hindrance. When they cease, the bitterness of death is past, and a new life opens up. The ultimate privileges are many and far-reaching, but the immediate consequence is reconciliation, or—
II. Peace with God.—The justified man, having received a new standing before God, feels himself no longer a culprit at the bar. The knowledge that God is at peace with him calms his guilty fears and raises him above the dread of condemnation.
1. His peace rests on a firm foundation. Confidence in the finished work of Christ and conscious reconciliation with God. That God is no longer angry is the pledge of forgiven sin, assurance that the danger is past and the soul is in safe keeping.
2. Peace that satisfies the soul. There are many refuges of lies, but there is no deception here. Conscience approves. “My peace I give unto you,” says Christ. How different from the world’s peace! “Lord, lift on us the light of Thy countenance, and give us peace”—Thy peace. This alone will satisfy the heart, the intellect, and the conscience.
3. This peace is progressive in its nature. It deepens and widens as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of God. Not like a mountain tarn, but like a brimming river, at first a tiny brook gathering as it goes, till on the plains it is strong and calm, broad and deep. “Oh that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.”
4. The peace of the justified is a permanent possession. Adversity may deprive you of earthly wealth and death of friends, but what comes as the result of union with Christ will outlive time, and pass with us beyond death. Oh for such a blessing as this: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”!—D. Merson, B.D.
Rom_5:1. Justification by faith.—The doctrine of justification by faith accepted by the Church gives strength and purity. “It was,” says a man of learning and good sense, writing of the Reformation, “the growth and expansion of one positive dogma, justification by faith, that broke down and crushed successively the various doctrines of the Romish Church” (Hallam’s History of Literature). Accepted by any soul, it gives life and peace. Consider: I. Justification; II. Its instrument—faith; III. Its result—peace.
I. Justification.—To justify, in Scripture, signifies always to count just or declare righteous. God is justified when He is declared righteous or shown to be just. The justification of God is not the infusion of righteousness into Him, but the manifestation or acknowledgment of His righteousness. The justification of man by God is His counting man as righteous. Rom_8:33 contrasts justification with condemnation, not purification: “It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?” In all other places the word has the same or a similar meaning (acknowledged by Dr. Newman in his Lectures on Justification).
1. Justification includes
(1) freedom from guilt, and
(2) divine acceptance. Not freedom from guilt alone, for the irrational animals who are incapable of moral good or evil are free from guilt.
2. Justification by the just Judge is always grounded on obedience to law. Justice and judgment are the pillars of God’s throne.
3. Justification rests either on the ground of personal obedience or righteousness, or on the ground of the accepted obedience of another in our place. In either case the obedience to law must be absolute and perfect in doing or suffering its penalty.
(1) Personal obedience justifies the unfallen angels. It cannot justify sinful men. “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in God’s sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom_3:20).
(2) The obedience and suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ, accepted in our place, justifies sinners. No created being had the right to place a substitute for himself before the throne of justice.
II. The instrument of justification—faith.—Faith is trust in Jesus as the Son of God and Saviour of the world.
III. The result—peace with God.—Peace with man desirable, more so peace with God.
1. State before justification is either one of indifference through the sleep of a benumbed conscience, or of unhappiness through an unsatisfied heart and diseased conscience.
2. Reconciliation with God, when the law is seen to be honoured, justice satisfied, and God “just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus,” satisfies conscience, removes the dread of vengeance, and awakens loving, happy gratitude.
3. Lasting peace is to be found in no other way. Gratuitous pardon, without atonement, not able to give peace. To this ultimate question, in which conscience in full action impels sinners like Judas Iscariot to seek punishment even as a relief and “antedating their own misery, seek for that they would loathe to find,” nothing but pardon through satisfaction of justice can give relief. Endeavours, tears, sorrows, are vain. Nothing can satisfy the sense of justice in that state of mind to which every man’s conscience is aiming but trust in the justice-satisfying Saviour. That gives peace and joy.
“My heart for gladness springs,
It cannot more be sad;
For every joy it laughs and sings,
Sees nought but sunshine glad.
The sun that glads mine eyes
Is Christ the Lord I love;
I sing for joy of that which lies
Stored up for me above.”
J. C. J.
The grace, the joy, and the glory.
I. The grace.—It is here called “this grace,”—a well-known, most suitable, and sufficient grace, or free love; the free love of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This is “the true grace of God”; free love in the heart of God to the ungodly, to the unloving and unlovable.
II. The access, or introduction.—We do not create or awaken this free love by any goodness or qualification of our own. It exists independent of these. Nor did Christ, by His coming and death, create that love. This love existed before; it was this that sent Christ. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.” Yet, without Christ, this love could never have reached us. He brings it to us, and us to it. He gives access and entrance and introduction; for the word implies all these, and is used elsewhere to signify the bringing or introducing one person to another (Luk_9:41; Act_16:20); and is employed not simply in reference to the grace of God, but to God Himself (1Pe_3:18; Eph_2:18; Eph_3:12). Our outward or objective introducer and introduction is Christ Himself; our inward or subjective introduction and introducer is faith.
III. The standing, or abiding.—In this grace, or free love, we have stood since we were introduced into it; and in it we are standing, and shall stand. “We stand in it!” This is a believing man’s true position. This free love is to him—
1. Abiding peace;
2. Abiding strength;
3. Abiding security. This free love is to him—
1. Sunshine;
2. Rain;
3. Food;
4. Water;
5. Medicine;
6. Wine. At this well he stands and drinks, in this sun he basks, to this storehouse he comes for everything. Have we used this free love as we ought? Are we using it constantly? O free love of God, what a fountain of life and strength thou art to the weary, helpless sinner!
IV. The rejoicing.—This grace is not merely stability for us, but joy and hope and glory. Standing in this grace, we are filled with joy. This joy comes not merely from the past and present, but from the future; not merely from the knowledge that we are beloved of God, but from the knowledge of what that love is to do for us hereafter. We rejoice because our future is filled with hope—the hope of the glory of God. Hence the apostle’s prayer, “The God of (the) hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.”
Take these lessons:
1. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
2. Rejoice in the Lord.
3. Abound in hope.
4. Realise the glory. Keep the eye steadfastly fixed upon it, till its brightness fills our whole being.—H. Bonar.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom_5:1-4
The state of grace.—What is this state? and what is this standing? The state is a state of grace, and means the privileged condition in which all Christians are found, though they were by nature the children of wrath. It is expressed by our apostle in the preceding words: “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.” It may well be called “this grace,” for it only flows from, and only proclaims, the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us, by Christ Jesus. But we may be reconciled to one another so as to be forgiven, and not be admitted into the intimacies of friendship. After Absalom was, through the intercession of Joab, allowed to return to Jerusalem, two years elapsed before he was allowed to see the king’s face. But God favours us with the most familiar intercourse and communion. We come boldly to the throne of grace. In everything, by prayer and supplication, we make known our requests. We walk with God; He honours us with His confidence, and trusts us with His secrets. This grace means also approbation and complacency. He takes pleasure in them that fear Him; He rests in his love; He joys over them with singing; they are His children, His bride, His jewels, His glory. Hence follows sympathy and compassion. What is done to them He resents as a personal injury; for he that toucheth them toucheth the apple of His eye. In all their affliction He is afflicted; though He corrects them, it is for their profit. In this grace they stand. Standing here intends “firmness,” “stability,” “permanence.” It is sometimes opposed to “condemnation”: “If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquity, O Lord, who shall stand?” Sometimes it is also opposed to “defeat.” “Take to you the whole armour of God, that ye may stand in the evil day; and having done all, may stand.” And of this they may be assured; for whatever disproportion there is between them and their enemies, the worm Jacob shall thresh the mountains. Some warriors have barely overcome—such another victory as they gained would have almost ruined them; but a Christian, having vanquished all his adversaries, stands with his feet on their necks, and is ready to engage as many more. “Yea, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” The more privileged any condition is, the more anxieties does it awaken. It is easy, therefore, to imagine what a Christian must feel if he apprehends any uncertainty as to the state he is in. But that state is as safe as it is blessed.—W. Jay.
The benefit of tribulation.—There are two benefits specified in this verse. The first, our present introduction into a state of favour and free access to God; and the second, the joyful “hope of the glory of God”—that is, the glory of which God is the author. The word “glory” is often used in reference to future blessedness, to show that the happiness to be enjoyed hereafter is connected with the exaltation of all our powers and of our sphere of activity. “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also.” Not only have we this introduction into the divine favour and this hope of future glory “but we glory in tribulations also.” Since our relation to God is changed, the relation of all things to us is changed. Afflictions, which before were the expressions of God’s displeasure, are now the benevolent manifestations of His love. And instead of being inconsistent with our filial relation to Him, they serve to prove that He regards us as His children. Tribulations, therefore, although for the present they are not joyous but grievous, become to the believer matter of joy and thankfulness. The way in which afflictions become thus useful, and consequently the ground of rejoicing, the apostle immediately explains. They give occasion for the exercise of the Christian graces, and these from their nature produce hope, which is sustained and authenticated by the witness of the Holy Spirit. “Tribulation worketh patience.” The word rendered “patience” signifies also “constancy,” “perseverance.” Tribulation gives occasion to exercise and manifest a patient and persevering adherence to truth and duty under trials. “And patience, experience; and experience, hope.” The word translated “experience” means properly:
1. “Trial” or “experiment.” “Great trial of affliction” (2Co_8:2)—that is, trial made by application.
2. It means the result of such trial, “evidence,” “experience.”
3. By another remove, “that which has been tested” and “approved.” As one or the other of these significations is adopted, the clause is variously interpreted. It may mean, “The endurance of afflictions leads to the trying or testing of one’s own heart”; or, “it occasions the experience of the divine goodness, or of gracious exercises”; or, “it produces a state of mind which is the object of approbation”; or, “it produces evidence, namely, of a gracious state.” This last seems most consistent with Paul’s use of the word. See 2Co_2:9, “That I might know the proof [evidence] of you, whether ye be obedient,” etc.; Php_2:2, “Ye know the proof of him,” etc. This sense suits the context also: “Tribulation calls forth the exercise of patience; and the exercise of this patience or constancy affords evidence of our being in favour of God, and therefore produces hope.”
“Let us have peace” the proper rendering.—“Let us have peace” was read probably by Tertullian, and is found in all, or very nearly all, the Latin manuscripts which were used throughout the Western Church. The same reading is repeatedly quoted and commented upon by Origen and by Chrysostom, who lived at Antioch and Constantinople A.D. 347–407. Neither of these writers seems to have known the other reading. The same reading is found in all existing Greek manuscripts earlier than the ninth century, and in some of the best cursives; also in the oldest Syriac Version used in the far East, and in the three other oldest versions. The earliest trace of the reading “we have peace” is found in the Sinai manuscript, in a correction of the other reading made perhaps in the fourth century. In the Vatican manuscript a similar correction was made, perhaps in the sixth century. Three of the later uncials and a majority of the cursive Greek manuscript give this reading. It is found in the existing copies of the writings of three fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. But the point in question does not affect their arguments; and as the writings exist only in a few manuscripts written after this reading had become common, we cannot be sure that it was actually adopted by these fathers. No early version has it except the later Syriac, which exists here, I believe, only in one copy. The only difficulty is that Paul assumes in Rom_5:2; Rom_5:9-10, that his readers already stand in the favour of God, and are now justified and reconciled. To this difficulty a key is found in Rom_4:24, “Us to whom it will be reckoned.” Throughout this epistle Paul writes from an ideal and rapidly changing standpoint. He identifies himself with that which he describes. In Rom_2:1, Rom_3:9, he leaves out of sight those saved from sin by Christ, and speaks as though all men were still actually committing sin, and therefore at war with God. He writes as though he had never heard of the gospel. In Rom_3:21 we hear the proclamation of peace. In chap. 4 he discusses the terms of peace. As he reads the old record of Abraham’s faith and justification, he declares that it was written to confirm beforehand the good news to be afterwards brought by Christ. And as he stands by the author of Genesis he looks forward to the day when faith “will be reckoned” for righteousness to all who believe the gospel. A prospect of peace with God opens before him. While he contemplates it the gospel day dawns upon him. In this verse he calls us to wake up to the brightness of its rising. What he bids us do he realises to be actually taking place in himself and his readers. In the next verse the sun has risen, and we stand in the sunshine of God’s favour. As a witness that this change of standpoint is in full accord with the genius of Hebrew thought, I may quote Driver, Hebrew Tenses, p. 6: “One such peculiarity is the singular ease and rapidity with which a writer changes his standpoint—at one moment speaking of a scene as though still in the remote future, at another moment describing it as though present to his gaze.” That the very able commentators Meyer and Godet prefer the utterly unsupported reading,” We have peace,” rather than attempt to expound the common rendering of the reading adopted by all recent critical editors, and the evident dissatisfaction of Fritysche and Alford with their own expositions, embolden me to suggest the rendering and exposition given above. The objection that an exhortation would be out of place in a calm exhortation of doctrine vanishes when we notice that in this verse Paul passes from abstract and general doctrine to actual and individual spiritual life. He marks the transition by urging his readers to join him in claiming the blessing whose glorious results he is about to unfold.—Beet.
Different views of the opening verses.—“The apostle begins to demonstrate what he has affirmed of justification by its effects.” Tholuck entitles this passage “the beneficent pathologico-religious influence of this means of salvation.” Olshausen, “of the fruits of faith,” adding at the same time that the apostle could of course only sketch these consequences of faith here, but that he will develop them afterwards. Philippi, “the beneficent consequences of justification.” Reuss says, “the piece describes the effect of justification on the man who is its object.” Lange and Schaff, “the fruit of justification.” Hodge, “the consequences of justification:
(1) faith,
(2) free access to God,
(3) our afflictions auxiliary to hope,
(4) the certainty of final salvation.” Renan says, “the fruit of justification is peace with God, hope, and consequently patience.” Hofmann sums up thus: “Let us enter into this relation of peace with God, in which we have the hope of glory, consolation in trials, love to God, and the certainty of deliverance from final wrath.” Bossuet, “the happy fruits of justification by faith.” Meyer better, “Paul now expounds the blessed certainty of salvation for the present and future.” Holsten has some expressions which approach this point of view. Schott entitles it, “the certainty of the believer’s preservation in salvation, and of the final consummation of this salvation.”—Godet.
Fruits of justification stated in a popular manner.—But perhaps we may obtain a simpler view of the meaning by considering the expression before us merely as the general conclusion from the whole argument as stated in the preceding part of the epistle. The apostle has proved that justification in the day of judgment can be obtained only by “the righteousness of faith”; and he has proved further “that justification in the present life is freely bestowed on faith alone.” And in the passage before us he states, in a general and popular manner, the result of the whole reasoning,—knowing that, in order to obtain justification, we are not required to fulfil any law, moral or ceremonial, but that God of His own free grace bestows it on us, through Christ, in consideration of our faith, we have peace with God. This view corresponds with the whole preceding reasonings, and forms their proper conclusion. It is liable to none of the difficulties which are implied in other explanations, and therefore it may perhaps be thought to deserve the preference. It is of importance to bear in mind the different senses in which the word “justification” is used; for the principle on which it depends in one of its senses is not that on which it depends in another. When it denotes privileges merely external, it requires only a confession of faith in Christ; when it denotes the forgiveness of sin on earth and accounting us as righteous, its principle is a true and saving faith; but when it denotes the sentence of the sovereign Judge, accounting us as righteous in the day of judgment, it depends on faith producing the fruits of righteousness.—Ritchie.
Encouragement to believers.—To comfort the Roman brethren under the evils which the profession of the gospel brought upon them, the apostle in the beginning of this chapter enumerated the privileges which belong to believers in general. And from his account it appears that the privileges of Abraham’s seed by faith are far greater than the privileges which belonged to his seed by natural descent, and which are described in Rom_2:17-20. The first privilege of the spiritual seed is—That being justified by faith they have peace with God through Jesus Christ. This, to the Gentiles, must have appeared an unspeakable blessing, in regard that they had been taught by the Jews to consider themselves as “children of wrath” and “enemies” of God. Their second privilege is—By the command of Christ they are admitted through faith into the covenant made with Abraham and into the Christian Church. Thirdly, they boast in the hope of beholding the glory of God in heaven—a privilege far superior to that of beholding the glory of God in the tabernacle and in the temple on earth, of which the natural seed boasted, for it is the hope of living eternally with God in heaven. Their fourth privilege is—They boast in afflictions, especially those which befall them for the name of Christ, because afflictions improve their graces and render their hope of eternal life sure. But many, even of the believing Jews, denied that the Gentiles had any reason to hope for eternal life while they did not obey Moses. Wherefore, to show that they are heirs of that and of all the blessings promised in the covenant to the seed of Abraham by faith equally with the Jews, the apostle appealed to God’s shedding down the Holy Ghost upon them, even as on the Jews, and to Christ’s dying for them in their ungodly state, and told them, since they were already “justified” (that is, “delivered from their heathenish ignorance and wickedness”) and “reconciled” (that is, “put into a state of salvation by the blood of Christ”), they might well expect to be “saved” in due time from wrath by His life in the human nature, since in that nature He exercises the offices of Lord and Judge of the world for their benefit. The last privilege belonging to the spiritual seed mentioned by the apostle is, that being reconciled they can boast in the true God as their God equally with the natural seed, whose relation to God was established by the law of Moses only. And this privilege he told them they had obtained like all the rest—through Jesus Christ, by whom they had received “the reconciliation.” “We even boast of afflictions.” The apostle mentions “afflictions” as “matter of boasting to the spiritual seed, because their virtues were improved by afflictions.” This boasting, therefore, was much better founded than the boasting of the natural seed, who, by applying the promises of national prosperity and the threatenings of national adversity contained in the law to individuals, had taught themselves to consider prosperity as a mark of the favour of God, and affliction as a token of His displeasure. A remarkable instance of rejoicing in afflictions we have in Act_5:41 : “They departed from the face of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.” “Knowing that affliction worketh out patience.” This effect affliction produceth by affording to the afflicted an opportunity of exercising patience, and by suggesting considerations which naturally lead the mind to that virtue.—Macknight.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 5
Rom_5:1. A Romish student and the Bible.—When Thomas Bilney was a Romish student in Trinity College, he carried a burdened mind in a body emaciated by penance which brought no relief. Hearing his friends one day talking about Erasmus’s Testament, he felt a strong desire to possess it; but as it was a forbidden book, he did not dare to touch it. Hoping, however, that something might be found in it to ease his troubled mind, he purchased a copy, and shut himself in his room to read it. With a trembling heart he opened it, and read with astonishment, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” Then laying it down, he exclaimed, “What! Paul the chief of sinners? yet Paul sure of being saved!” He read it again and again, and broke out into an ecstasy of joy, “At last I have heard of Jesus—Jesus Christ. Yes, Jesus Christ saves.” And falling down on his knees, he prayed, “O Thou who art the truth, give me strength that I may teach it, and convert the ungodly by means of one who has been himself ungodly.” Bilney being justified by faith in and through Jesus Christ, possessed peace.
Rom_5:2. Philosopher and King’s son.—Without faith it is impossible to please God. Let us not otherwise dare to come into His presence. There is nothing but wrath in Him for sin in us. Joseph charged his brethren that they should come no more in his sight unless they brought Benjamin with them. We come at our peril into God’s presence if we leave His beloved Benjamin, our dear Jesus, behind us. When the philosopher heard of the enraged emperor’s menace, that the next time he saw him he would kill him, he took up the emperor’s little son in his arms, and saluted him with a potesne, “Thou canst not now strike me.” God is angry with every man for his sins. Happy is he that can catch up His Son Jesus; for in whose arms soever the Lord sees His Son He will spare him. The men of Tyre were fain to intercede to Herod by Blastus (Act_12:20). Our intercession to God is made by a higher and surer way: not by His servant—by His Son.
Rom_5:3. The ministry of sorrow.—The ministry of sorrow and disappointment is to test the soul and to temper it to nobler issues, as the oak is tempered and beautified by the winter’s storms. Some great agony may be as a cup in which is a draught of moral strength. When we have drunk the repellent mixture, when we have felt the after-benefit, then shall we know that often apparent failure in life is in reality a success.
“Then welcome each rebuff
That turns earth’s smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang, daring,
Never grudge the throe.”
Browning.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv1–5 1. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace…
1. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This verse assumes the hortatory form, urging us up, in view of the wonderful simplicity and feasibility of justification by faith, that we all avail ourselves of the glorious privilege to enjoy perfect peace and reconciliation with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. If Abraham and his contemporaries in a moonlight dispensation could have such a victory through anticipatory faith, apprehending the promises and appropriating the vicarious atonement, how infinitely brighter should be the victory of our faith, walking in the cloudless light of the glorious Son of righteousness, who is already risen on the world with healing in His wings, flooding the whole earth with the transcendent effulgence of the historic incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension!
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. We read in the New Testament, and especially…
Rom 5:1
I. We read in the New Testament, and especially in the writings of St. Paul, a good deal of the doctrine of justification by faith. Now, is there any distinction between this doctrine of justification, between this blessing of justification, and the blessing of pardon? Is pardon synonymous with justification? I take it that, while justification always involves pardon, and while in the case of an individual sinner it is never separated from pardon, and the pardoned man is always justified, and the justified man is always pardoned,—while in the processes of God’s grace to an individual soul, these are never found apart, yet theologically they are to be carefully distinguished. The type and symbol of a justified man is not Joshua simply washed, but Joshua clothed, and clothed in such garments, so fair in holiness, so perfect in their beauty, that we may put into his mouth the song in which the Church, under God’s mercy, breaks out into the jubilant language of thanksgiving and praise, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall be joyful in my God, for He hath clothed me with garments of salvation."
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II. "Peace with God." It is undeniable that there is such a thing as peace which does not arise from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is: (1) The peace of ignorance. There are men who know nothing of the law of God; they know nothing of the nature of God; they have never been roused to spiritual anxiety or to spiritual inquiry. Their hopes are of the vaguest and dreamiest kind; or they are simply those hopes of which we hear much in the present day, resting upon the great mercy of God, as if somehow or other we are all to get back to God at last—whether we die in Christ or not. (2) And then there is the peace of the Pharisee. He lives and dies in the buckram of his self-righteousness. He thanks God that he is not as other men are. He is going to heaven perfectly satisfied with himself, or perhaps, just trusting a little to Christ to make up the balance which he may think is against him. Therefore we should ask, not only, "Have you peace?" but "Upon what is that peace resting?"
J. C. Miller, Penny Pulpit, No. 717, new series.
I. The common meaning which is put upon the word justified may not be all that St. Paul intended by it, nor all that we need to see in it. But it must have a great worth. God accounts me righteous, He justifies me, He does not account me that which in my proper legitimate state, as united to Christ, I am not; He treats me as that which, in this my proper and reasonable state, I am. The justified man is not only one who is acquitted, not only one who is set down as righteous, but one who, in the strictest sense, has become, or has been made, righteous.
II. And thus we are able to feel the force of the next words, "Being justified by faith." God is the Justifier, He who accounts man righteous and makes him righteous, and man is justified or made righteous by faith. He believes the witness which God has given of Himself in His Son, and therefore he has faith in God, faith in what He has done, faith in what He is. He is righteous only by this faith, for only by it does he claim any relation to Him who is righteous, only by it can he ascend out of his own nature. Having faith in God, he becomes a true man; otherwise he possesses only the torments of a man with the instincts and pleasures of an animal.
III. Being justified by faith, we have peace. Peace must come by rising into life. To suppose that this peace is something won by a certain momentary act of belief, and thenceforth guaranteed to the believer as his treasure and property, is to subvert the whole doctrine.
IV. The great question which every man asks is, How can I be at peace with God? The answer St. Paul makes is, "God has made peace with thee, through Jesus Christ." In Him He has manifested to thee what He is; in Him He sees thee. Thou mayest see God in Him; thou mayest rise thyself to be a new creature in Him. For thou art not what thou supposest thyself to be—a separate atom in the universe, a creature who has no relation to any other. Thou hast wonderful affinities with all these beings about thee; and when thou art driven by thy wretchedness and despair of thyself to trust in Him who has taken thy nature upon Him, thou wilt find out that secret as well as the secret of thy own emancipation.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 1.
References: Rom 5:1.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix., No. 510; vol. xxv., No. 1456; Expositor, 1st series, vol. ix., p. 215; Church of England Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 83; Ibid., vol. xiii., p. 123; E. Johnson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 234; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 235; Homiletic Quarterly., vol. iii., p. 376; W. Hay Aitken, Around the Cross, p. 65; Archbishop Magee, Sermons at Bath, pp. 63, 88.
Rom 5:1-2
The State of Grace.
There are some who seem only to fear or to have very little joy in religion. These are in a more hopeful state than those who only joy and do not fear at all; yet they are not altogether in a right state. Let us consider how the persons in question come to have this defective kind of religion.
I. In the first place, of course, we must take into account bodily disorder, which is not unfrequently the cause of this perplexity of mind. Many persons have an anxious self-tormenting disposition, or depression of spirits, or deadness of the affections, in consequence of continued or peculiar ill-health; and though it is their study, as it is their duty, to strive against this evil as much as they can, yet it often may be impossible to be rid of it. Of course in such cases we can impute no fault to them. They must be patient under their fears, and try and serve God more strictly.
II. But again, the uncomfortable state of mind I have described sometimes, it is to be feared, arises, I will not say from wilful sin, but from some natural deficiency which might be corrected, but is not. The sins I speak of arise partly through frailty, partly through want of love; and they seem just to have this effect of dimming or quenching our peace and joy. The absence of a vigilant walk, of exact conscientiousness in all things, of an earnest and vigorous warfare against our spiritual enemies, in a word, of strictness, this is what obscures our peace and joy.
III. This fearful anxious state of mind arises very commonly from not having a lively sense of our present privileges. There are persons highly respectable indeed and serious, but whose religion is of a dry and cold character, with little heart or insight into the next world. They are most excellent men in their line, but they do not walk in a lofty path. There is nothing unearthly about them; they cannot be said to be worldly; yet they do not walk by things unseen, they do not discern and contemplate the next world. They are not on the alert to detect, patient in watching, keen-sighted in tracing the movements of God’s secret providence. They do not feel they are in an immense unbounded system, with a height above and a depth beneath. Such men are used to explain away such passages as the text. Their joy does not rise higher than what they call a rational faith and hope, a satisfaction in religion, a cheerfulness, a well-ordered mind, and the like—all very good words, if properly used, but shallow to express the fulness of the gospel privileges.
IV. What is it, then, that these little ones of Christ lack who, without wilful sin, past or present, on their consciences, are in gloom and sorrow? What but the great and high doctrines connected with the Church? Fall down in astonishment at the glories which are around thee and in thee, poured to and fro in such a wonderful way that thou art, as it were, dissolved into the kingdom of God, as though thou hadst nought to do but to contemplate and feed on that great vision. In spite of all recollections of the past or fear for the future, we have a present source of rejoicing. Whatever comes, weal or woe, however stands our account as yet in the books against the Last Day, this we have and this we may glory in—the present power and grace of God in us and over us, and the means thereby given us of victory in the end.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. iv., p. 138.
Reference: Rom 5:1, Rom 5:2.—Homilist, new series, vol. iv., p. 413.
Rom 5:1-11
Immediate Results of Justification.
To be acquitted of guilt through the death of Jesus is the most elementary blessing which the gospel brings to our condemned race, shut up in its prison-house of wrath. But it cannot come alone. It opens a door of hope through which each reconciled sinner may look forward unto a new world of lovely blessings following in its train. Hope is the keyword of this section, therefore—exultant hope of future glory; and the three ideas which successively emerge in its very rich and vivid sentences are these: (1) Our hope reposes on this new relation, established between us and God, that we are at peace with Him. (2) Our hope is not impaired but confirmed by our present tribulation. (3) Our hope is warranted by the proof which we already possess of the love of God for us.
I. There is room now in men’s hearts for the hope that God will bless them with that glory which is His own blessedness, since now they are at peace with Him (vers. 1, 2). Enemies of God could never expect to behold His glory, or be satisfied with His likeness. His friends may. Standing thus near, within sight of that Eye that kindles with a Divine delight over His banished brought back; standing thus near, introduced by the Hand that was pierced, and accepted in the Beloved who was slain, what is there for a justified believer to fear? What is there not for him to hope?
II. It is far off, that glory of God which we hope for; at least, it is still in the future. The present is for all of us a life of trouble. Our mean, grieved, dying days, do they not flout and mock at such splendid expectations? Quite the contrary. In the long run life’s trouble is found rather to confirm our hope. The Christian who perseveres under trouble is an approved or accredited believer. Is it not clear that, when the tested Christian finds his faith has proved itself genuine, his hope will wax so much the more confident?
III. The triumphant hope of a justified believer in what God is yet to do for him finds a still more sure and inexpugnable foundation of fact in what God has already done to prove the greatness of His love.
J. Oswald Dykes, The Gospel according to St. Paul, p. 113.
References: Rom 5:1-12.—Expository Sermons on the New Testament, p. 178. Rom 5:5.—G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 97; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 829; vol. xxxii., No. 1904; T. T. Carter, Sermons, p. 309; E. H. Gifford, The Glory of God in Man, p. 90. Rom 5:6.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vi., p. 1. Rom 5:6-8.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 424; W. Hubbard, Ibid., vol. vii., p. 339; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., No. 446; vol. xx., No. 1184; vol. xx., No. 1191; vol. xxiii., No. 1345. Rom 5:6-10.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 340; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 16; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 265.
Rom 5:7-8
God’s Love Magnified in Christ’s Death.
I. In considering how God appointed our Lord and Saviour to suffering and death as the most perfect proof of obedience, it seems necessary to begin by removing a difficulty which will certainly occur to every one: that is, that the death of the Saviour seems by no means so obvious an evidence of the love of God, His and our heavenly Father, as of the Saviour’s own love to His brethren; and that it is only, as it were, on the ground of His love to us that we have any right to see in His death the love of God towards us. And yet the case stands as I have stated it. It is indeed difficult to separate things which are in the very closest connection; and who could wish to make a division between the Saviour’s love to us and His obedience to His and our heavenly Father? And yet the two are so related that His love to us is shown most directly in His life and His obedience to His Father in His sufferings and death. God shows forth His love to us in this; says Paul, that according to His command and will Christ died for us while we were yet sinners; not for the sake of the righteous, not for a good man nor for a circle of friends, but for the whole world of sinners. And so we cannot doubt that this was the most perfect act of obedience, and that God called Christ to it for our sakes; for it was necessary that He should endure this death, not for His own sake nor with any other good object but that of effecting the salvation of sinners.
II. This brings us to consider, in the second place, what was meant to be accomplished, and therefore was accomplished—for when we speak of a Divine purpose we cannot separate design from fulfilment—by this death of the Saviour, that we may see how it was the full glorification of the Divine love. The greatest love is that which effects the most good to the person who is the object of it. We should try in vain to give another definition of it. Now, the Apostle says, "As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of the One the many are made righteous." This then is what was to result from the Saviour’s obedience unto death on the cross. He needed to die for us, Paul says, when we were yet sinners. We become righteous, only it is not because and so far as we have set Him before our eyes as an ideal, for thus we shall never reach it, but really because and in so far as we have received Him into our hearts as the fountain of life. We become righteous if we no longer live in the flesh, but Christ the Son of God lives in us—if we are fully identified with that common life of which He is the centre. For then each of us can say of himself, "Who is there that can condemn?" It is Christ that justifies. We are in Him, He is in us, inseparably united with those who believe on the Son of God; in this fellowship with Him we are truly righteous. But if we come back to ourselves and consider our individual life just in itself, then we are glad to forget what is behind and to reach forth towards that which is before. Then we know well that we must ever anew take refuge in Him, ever be looking to Him and to His obedience on the cross, ever be filled with the power of His life and His presence, and thus we shall attain to that growth in righteousness and holiness and wisdom, in which truly consists our redemption through Him, through His life and His love, His obedience and His death.
F. Schleiermacher, Selected Sermons, p. 372.
References: Rom 5:7, Rom 5:8.—E. D. Solomon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 280; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 7.
Rom 5:8
What Proves God’s Love?
I. It is a strange thing that the love of God needs to be either proved or pressed upon men. (1) There never was, there is not, any religion untouched by Christianity that has any firm grip of the truth "God is love." (2) Even among ourselves and other people that have drunk in some form of Christianity with their mother’s milk, it is the hardest possible thing even for men who do accept that gospel in their hearts to keep themselves up to the level of that great truth.
II. Notice the one fact which performs the double office of demonstrating and commending to us the love of God: "In that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Christ’s death is a death, not for an age, but for all time; not for this, that, or the other man, not for a section of the race, but for the whole of us, in all generations. The power of that death, as the sweep of that love, extends over all humanity, and holds forth benefits to every man of woman born.
III. Look at the force of this proof. Has it ever struck you that the words of the text, upon every hypothesis but one, are a most singular paradox? "God commendeth His own love to us, in that Christ died for us." Is that not strange? What is the connection between God’s love and Christ’s death? Is it not obvious that we must conceive the relation between God and Christ to be singularly close in order that Christ’s death should prove God’s love? The man who said that God’s love was proved by Christ’s propitiatory death believed that the heart of Christ was the revelation of the heart of God, and that what Christ did God did in His well-beloved Son.
IV. Consider what is thus proved and pressed upon us by the Cross. (1) The Cross of Jesus Christ speaks to the world of a love which is not drawn forth by any merit or goodness in us. (2) The Cross of Christ preaches to us a love that has no cause, motive, reason, or origin, except Himself. (3) The Cross preaches to us a love which shrinks from no sacrifice. (4) The Cross proves to us and presses upon us a love which wants nothing but our love, which hungers for the return of our love and our thankfulness.
A. Maclaren, Christian Commonwealth, June 4th, 1885.
Suffering Love.
I. This verse is a direct assertion of the deity of Jesus Christ. For it does not mean, "The Father commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," but that "Christ commends His love to us, in that while we were yet sinners, He died for us." It is plain that He who loves is He who dies—otherwise there is no argument at all, if one loves and another dies.
II. When it was God’s will to present to our world a perfect view of His adorable Being He embodied it into flesh. He made it palpable to man’s understanding. He made it speak by tears and smiles and humility and sympathy and anguish; and then He hung it upon a cross, and that image of God’s love He called Christ. All that is truth in this world is a copy of the highest, and the greatest original of all love was suffering love, and therefore none can be a picture of love except it bear something of sadness.
III. The language of the Apostle at once conducts us to one leading trait in the love which characterised the sufferings of Jesus Christ—for it was not reflecting love, but originating love. It went forth to sinners. We must take care that we understand the full force of the expression. The love that is in the life and death of Jesus is the seed of every spark of love that is worthy the name of love upon the whole earth.
IV. One marvel of the love of Christ is its simple endurance of things conspiring to disturb it. He passed through every diversity of irritating circumstance, and yet there is not a moment in which we can discover a want of affection. He pursues His path of high love without one single deviation.
V. We cannot admire too much the beautiful proportion of the love of Christ—blending the general interest with particular tenderness. He grasped the universal kingdom of God. Nevertheless, His heart was so disengaged for any one that wanted it, that He loved and bled as if for that one. He has a look for Peter in the hall. He has an eye for Mary upon the cross. He could descend at once from the grand rangings of His comprehensive work to the minutest incident and the smallest work that comes nearest Him. He recollects the cock must crow twice. He has compassion upon the poor servant’s wounded ear. He studies the comfort of His mother’s future home. These are beautiful traits in the face of love; and is it not just such love that we want?
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 2nd series, p. 107.
God’s Inexhaustible Love.
I. We often forget that God is our Father when sorrow overwhelms us. We forget it still more when all is prosperous and happy. Nay, it would be truer to say that in sorrow we are not tempted to forget this truth, but to deny it; in happiness we are tempted to forget it. There is indeed such a thing as an innocent forgetting. Just as a child may forget the presence of a loved earthly father because that father is so completely a part of the happiness which is shed around, so, too, the Christian may go on his way rejoicing in what God has bestowed—health and strength and happy thoughts and enjoyments suited to youth—and certainly will not be blamed for letting his thoughts be full of the innocent pleasures that his Father gives. But this forgetfulness of God, which may be innocent in the beginning, is liable to slip into a coldness of love simply by its own continuance.
II. We are tempted to forget, or to disbelieve, or even to deny that God is our Father when we have done wrong. And, indeed, there is a kind of truth in what we feel; for we rightly feel that our wrong-doing has taken us away from Him. We feel cast off; out of His sight; we feel as if it were useless now to try to hold a place in His love, that place which our misdeed has forfeited; too often we add sin to sin in a kind of recklessness, because it seems not worth while to battle for a completely lost cause. But this is a temptation of our weak nature, and not the direction of conscience nor the teaching of the Bible. If we feel cold in heart, let us turn to Him for warmth; if we feel doubtful, let us beg Him to increase our faith; if we have done very wickedly, let us be all the more sorrowful and all the more earnest in our endeavours to cast out the evil spirit. But let us never forget that He is our Father, and that without our prayer, out of the depths of His love, He sent His Son to bring us back to His Home, to Himself.
Bishop Temple, Rugby Sermons, p. 326.
References: Rom 5:8.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii., No. 104; vol. xxiii., No. 1345; T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iv., p. 182; C. G. Finney, Gospel Themes, p. 307; J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 2nd series, p. 107; J. Edmunds, Sermons in a Village Church, p. 96. Rom 5:10.—Homilist, new series, vol. iii., p. 422; J. Vaughan, Sermons, 9th series, p. 181.
Rom 5:12
Perhaps there is no more awful thought than this, that sin is all around us and within us, and we know not what it is. We are beset by it on every side: it hangs over us, hovers about us, casts itself across our path, hides itself where our next footstep is to fall, searches us through and through, listens at our heart, floats through all our thoughts, draws our will under its sway and ourselves under its dominion, and we do not know what it is.
I. The entering in of sin proves the presence of an evil being. We talk of powers and qualities and principles and oppositions and the like; but we are only putting words for realities. They do not exist apart from being create or uncreate; they are the attributes and energies of living spirits. Sin entered in through and by the evil one—that is, the devil.
II. Another truth to be learned is this, that by the entering in of sin a change passed upon the world itself. I am not now speaking of physical evil, such as dissolution and death and the wasting away of God’s works, but only of moral evil. A change passed upon the condition of man. His will revolted and transferred its loyalty from God to the evil one. Thenceforward man was the representative of the alien and antagonist power which had broken the unity of God’s kingdom; and his will was bent in a direct opposition to the will of God. Such, then, is sin.
III. This awful principle of sin has been ever multiplying itself from the beginning of the world. It so clave to the life of man that, as living souls were multiplied, sin in them was multiplied also. As sin has multiplied in its extent, so it would seem also to have become more intense in its character. The mystery of original sin is begun over and over again with each successive generation. Men grow up to a certain height of the moral stature, and are cut down and laid in the earth; their children rise up more or less to the same standard, within certain limits which are the conditions of our being and our probation. But it is no less true that there is a growth and accumulation of evil which in the life of the world is analogous to the deterioration of character in the individual man. The full unfolding of sin has ever been at the close of the dispensations of God; it has been at its worst when He was nighest. It shall at last stand forth in the earth, at the full stature of its hate and daring against heaven, and by the coming of the Son of man in glory shall be cast out for ever.
H. E. Manning, Sermons, vol. i., p. 1.
I. Note first how naturally and reasonably faith may link the mysterious record of the Fall with the plain facts of our present state. There is a clear and familiar analogy between the childhood of each one of us and the childhood of the race. It is from others that we learn the story of our earliest days; we trust others for all knowledge of the time of our birth and the first shelter of our life; others tell us to whom we owed the care and love in which self-knowledge woke; we must ask others how our place and lot were first marked out for us among our fellow-men. It is faith in others, the evidence of things not seen, which links our present and our past, which gives us the bare outline of our infancy, and shows us our own life continuous beyond the bounds of memory. Now, is it not exactly thus with the childhood of mankind? Natural reason tells us as little of the childhood of humanity as memory can tell us of our own. All the wondrous vision of man’s infancy God offers to our faith. He bids us trust Him here. The facts of life force our thoughts to the recognition of the Fall, just as the attractions and repulsions of the heavenly bodies guide the astronomer to believe in the existence of an undiscovered star. "All hangs on that imperceptible point." And so, I believe, it has come to pass that the doctrine of the Fall, and of a flaw and fault inherent in our manhood, has been at once the most scornfully rejected and the most generally acknowledged truth in all the Christian faith.
II. Over against the great fact of the sin of the world there stands the great fact of the sinlessness of Christ. We realise the full import of one side of the contrast only as we enter into the reality of the other. Only in the light of His holiness can we see how far the world has fallen away from God; only as we represent to ourselves the range and subtlety and cruelty of sin can we recognise the arresting and controlling miracle of His perfect holiness. And as we realise what He, All-perfect and All-love, vouchsafed to bear for us within the misery of our loveless life, it will lead us to kneel with a new glow of gratitude and adoration at His feet, to cry with a new longing that we may never fall away from Him, fall back under the darkness of sin. "O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. For Thou only art Holy, Thou only art the Lord; Thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the Father."
F. Paget, Cambridge Review, March 3rd, 1886.
References: Rom 6:12.—C. Kingsley, National Sermons, p. 228; C. J. Vaughan, Lessons of the Cross and Passion, p. 214; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. vii., p. 149; W. Cunningham, Sermons, p. 72; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 157. Rom 5:15.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1591; E. de Pressensé, The Mystery of Suffering, p. 1; E. Bersier, Preacher’s Lantern, vol. i., pp. 13, 94, 160.
Rom 5:17-21
The Chapter of the Five Kings.
Where do we find these five kings? There is King Sin, for Sin reigned. There is King Death, for I read "Death reigned." There is King Grace, for Grace reigned. There is King Jesus, for we reign by One, Jesus Christ; and then, as a consequence, you have kingly saints, for "they which receive abundance of grace shall reign."
I. King Sin. His laws are the lusts of man’s own heart. One of the saddest things about him is that we can say all his subjects are voluntarily so. They are willingly captives. He does not hold them with a grip against their wish. His reign is a cruel one, for he reigns "unto death."
II. King Death. Death reigns by sin. Satan reigns by both. It is a triple empire. They stand or fall together. Who can compete with Death? He can say what no monarch on earth can utter. I have never suffered a defeat. I have entered into the lists with the wisest and the strongest and have overcome them. The wealthy have not been able to bribe me, and the longest life has had to succumb at last.
III. King Grace—King Jesus. By His teaching and by His life, by His death and by His resurrection, Jesus opposed Sin.
IV. Kingly saints. How little the world understands the Church! The world cannot see our royal robes, for they are made of such peculiar texture that you must have a sanctified eye to behold them. The world cannot see the crown that is on every believer’s brow. Only the saint can perceive it on the brow of his brother. In a little while King Jesus shall come again, and then shall be caught up to Him all His saints, and the text shall be literally and perfectly fulfilled, and we shall reign with Him. There are thrones waiting for the redeemed. There are unfading crowns awaiting the Divine bestowal. "They shall reign by One, Jesus Christ."
A. G. Brown, Penny Pulpit, No. 1108, new series.
References: Rom 5:18.—W. J. Woods, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 198; Homilist, new series, vol. iii., p. 90. Rom 5:19.—E. Cooper, Practical Sermons, vol. iii., p. 144. Rom 5:20.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i., No. 37; Homilist, new series, vol. ii., p. 260; vol. iii., p. 90; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 373.
Rom 5:20-21
Abounding Sin; Over-abounding Grace.
I. Grace. Here are the two antagonists—grace and sin. Both would be kings; one only has the power to reign. Grace is not just synonymous with love, though love is at the heart of it. It is love in a certain relation—the love of a Redeemer working to its ends. It represents the whole sum of the forces and influences by which the love that would redeem aims at the accomplishment of its hope. Ye know the grace of the Lord Jesus, but the measure of it One only knows. That grace is the conqueror of sin. That triumphs where law fails.
II. The relation between grace and sin. (1) Sin is the condition of its manifestation. No sin, no grace, and none of that special glory which grace alone can win—the glory of the redemption of the world. God suffers sin to be born because He knows that grace can conquer it, strip its spoils, and reign in triumph over worlds which His victory has glorified eternally. (2) There is a glory which no feat of omnipotence even can create, which grace, by the conquest of sin, can win and wear through eternity. No sin, no grace, and in the highest sense no glory.
III. The relation between grace and righteousness. Grace must reign through righteousness, if it reign at all. (1) None but a righteous soul can be a blessed soul. (2) The righteousness which is by grace has a glory and blessedness which is all its own.
IV. The complete and final end of God "unto eternal life." Death is simply isolation. Life is the opposite of isolation. It is the faculty of communion with all things—receiving their tributes, and repaying them with fruits. The work of grace is as the "baptism of a new life for man. The eye kindles again when it feels the inspiration, the blood glows, the limbs and organs of the spirit brace themselves to new vigour and swiftness, while a solemn joy fills the heart which is unspeakable and full of glory.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Divine Mysteries, p. 81.
References: Rom 5:20, Rom 5:21.—S. A. Tipple, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxi., p. 104. Rom 5:21.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 330; Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv., p. 56; C. J. Vaughan, Lessons of the Cross and Passion, p. 201. Rom 6:1, Rom 6:2.—F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 385.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Section 4. (Rom 5:1-11.)
Section 4. (Rom 5:1-11.)
Experience on the way.
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As the result of all this, the experience of the justified believer is now set before us; which is, let us note, the experience of faith, and may vary in energy of apprehension, as the faith itself is clear-sighted and intelligent. Yet all the features should be found, and the faith itself as seen here go on to the full day of open vision: it is a brief but blessed "pilgrim’s progress," until the pilgrim "stands within the gate."
First, we have a look backward, round, and forward. Justified by faith contemplates the past; though it abides as something that ever characterizes our condition. The precious blood of Jesus necessarily abides in its value for God, and in its unchanging efficacy for every believer. "By one offering," says the epistle to the Hebrews, "He has perfected for ever" (or "in perpetuity," as the phrase means) "those that are sanctified" (Heb 10:14). The result is, "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." "He has made peace for us through the blood of His cross" (Col 1:20). The constancy of our enjoyment is thus provided for; but we must not confound our experience of it with the blessed reality itself of what Christ has secured to us. He has not made the feelings, but has made that which entitles us to have the feelings.
Peace with God has been secured to us then in a way which never can be disturbed: faith has given us access into a place in which we stand in grace -the free favor of God, which as such cannot be forfeited. As a consequence, the future also is absolutely clear: "we boast in hope of the glory of God." It is not a doubtful hope that one can boast in. That out of which, even in its representative on earth, man under law had rigidly to be kept, is now wide open in its own heavenly dwelling-place. Saul of Tarsus saw it, as Stephen had seen it, with the Son of man standing in it; and that which goes out now, as we have seen, is "the gospel of the glory." We have not indeed, as far as we have yet reached in Romans, what is ours in its fulness in that central Figure standing there; yet we know that He is gone in, and the way thither is henceforth open.
2. Along the road there are tribulations: this is what the Lord has foretold, but with the assurance of the antidote that He has provided for us in the peace we have in Him. The apostle speaks in the light of experience, and as realizing the needs to which God ministers in this very way. "We boast," he says, "in tribulations also, conscious that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope." Here is how that which is against us works for us; and notice that the very first thing effected is the breaking down of our own wills, those wills that Jacob-like struggle so much with the will of God. Sovereign He must be; and spite of all that we have known of Him, it is what in practical detail we so little want Him to be. Amid the clouds and darkness that encompass Him in His providential dealings faith that should find its opportunity finds oftentimes bewilderment and perplexity; yet in it we are forced to recognize our nothingness, and creep closer to the side of Him who yet goes with us. Forced to let God be God, it is then that we get experience of a moral government which is that of a Father. The forcing of outward things comes to be read as drawings of Omnipotent Love that seeks us for its own delight. His ways, if still they may be beyond us, are not strange and still less adverse. They beget, not fear or misgiving, but a brightening hope, that steadies as it brightens. We realize how much rather the darkness from which we suffered was moral and within ourselves than from the mystery of things around. There is a mystery: this Caesar who commands that all the world should be taxed to pay him tribute; that made the noise and seemed to give the portent; underneath and yet above it all, a woman is brought by it -a lowly woman to a poor Judean town -that a little Babe may be born in Bethlehem.
Here truly is the mystery that endears all mysteries, and with which the Spirit given to us builds firmly up the hope that maketh not ashamed. This hope is not something less than certainty, as mere human hopes are: the love of God to us is its foundation, is its inspiration and the energy within which lifts and carries us; love that has long waited, kept back by the stubborn haughtiness of heart which had to be beaten down into the dust ere it could have its will. So the "due season" tarried until at last, when we were yet without strength, all self-effort vain, Christ died for the ungodly.
The peculiarity of divine love is here emphasized that, while for a merely righteous man scarcely would any one be found to die, and for a good man -one with a heart to attract other hearts -some might even dare to die, God has shown His love in this, that when we were yet sinners (neither good nor righteous) Christ died for us.
Such being the love of God, and this the condition in which it met us, and in Christ His marvelous gift for us, the argument is complete that the hope connected with it cannot leave us 3t last ashamed: God will surely carry through. what He has begun in our behalf, and save eternally those who are already justified by the blood of Christ. Love like this will not relax its hold upon us, nor power be lacking where righteousness has been in such a manner put upon the side of love. Thus the sure coming glory brightens all the clouds that hang over the road that leads there.
3. The work within us corresponds to the work done for us in sustaining such an assurance. The work of Christ has done more than put away our sins: it has reconciled us to God. His Son dying for our sins, when brought by the Spirit home to us in its persuasive power, wins effectually the heart to God. If, when we were enemies, He could so reconcile us, how much more will He bring through in spite of every difficulty, those so reconciled? We see here that reconciliation is not an after-effect upon the saint, as some would make it, but that which brings him out of his enmity, in heart to God. The apostle has not the idea of an unreconciled Christian, any more than he would have of an unjustified one. "We have now received the reconciliation" is said of all.
Moreover the "death" of His Son does not as yet imply what is presently deduced from it, our death with Him, but is put in contrast with His "life" by which we shall be saved, but obviously also to emphasize the love of God in giving up His Son to this. "His blood," spoken of in connection with justification, would not have been at all suited to the connection here. The point here is the effect for the heart; and therefore the closing words which bring before us the "joy in God" which is the consequence in the reconciled soul.
But the mention of His "life" is, doubtless, a link with what is to follow. To take it, as some do, as referring to the Lord’s life on earth before death is out of harmony with the whole doctrine of these chapters, in which from the beginning to the end, in perfect relation to Paul’s gospel of the glory, it is the risen Christ who is before us. In the gospel of John also, who, as has been often noticed, comes so near to Paul in truths peculiar to him, the Lord distinctly says to His disciples, "Because I live, ye shall live also" (Joh 14:19). No one will dispute that these words refer to His life in resurrection; and the thought is entirely similar to what we have here. We are "bound in the bundle of life" with the Lord of glory; and this assures us of our eternal salvation. This doctrine we shall have in the second part of the epistle.
Here then the first division of the epistle ends. We see that the righteousness of God in the justification of the ungodly by faith in Christ, and through His blood shed for sinners, is the great subject of it. The position of the believer, except so far as his security from the wrath to come is concerned, is scarcely touched upon as yet. There is no question as yet of his nature as born of Adam, but simply of his sins. We have nothing as yet of the flesh nor of the old man; nothing about life in Christ; nothing about the facts or fruits of the indwelling of the Spirit. All this remains to be considered in the second part of the epistle, which treats of our place in Christ, and of the results of this glorious truth in blessing for the Christian.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5
Romans
LET US HAVE PEACE
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Rom 5:1.
In the rendering of the Revised Version, ‘Let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,’ the alteration is very slight, being that of one letter in one word, the substitution of a long ‘o’ for a short one. The majority of manuscripts of authority read ‘let us have,’ making the clause an exhortation and not a statement. I suppose the reason why, in some inferior MSS., the statement takes the place of the exhortation is because it was felt to be somewhat of a difficulty to understand the Apostle’s course of thought. But I shall hope to show you that the true understanding of the context, as well as of the words I have taken for my text, requires the exhortation and not the affirmation.
One more remark of an introductory character: is it not very beautiful to see how the Apostle here identifies himself, in all humility, with the Christians whom he is addressing, and feels that he, Apostle as he is, has the same need for the same counsel and stimulus that the weakest of those to whom he is writing have? It would have been so easy for him to isolate himself, and say, ‘Now you have peace with God; see that you keep it.’ But he puts himself into the same class as those whom he is exhorting, and that is what all of us have to do who would give advice that will be worth anything or of any effect. He does not stand upon a little molehill of superiority, and look down upon the Roman Christians, and imply that they have needs that he has not, but he exhorts himself too, saying, ‘Let all of us who have obtained like precious faith, which is alike in an Apostle and in the humblest believer, have peace with God.’
Now a word, first, about the meaning of this somewhat singular exhortation.
There is a theory of man and his relation to God underlying it, which is very unfashionable at present, but which corresponds to the deepest things in human nature, and the deepest mysteries in human history, and that is, that something has come in to produce the totally unnatural and monstrous fact that between God and man there is not amity or harmony. Men, on their side, are alienated, because their wills are rebellious and their aims diverse from God’s purpose concerning them. And-although it is an awful thing to have to say, and one from which the sentimentalism of much modern Christianity weakly recoils-on God’s side, too, the relation has been disturbed, and ‘we are by nature the children of wrath, even as others’; not of a wrath which is unloving, not of a wrath which is impetuous and passionate, not of a wrath which seeks the hurt of its objects, but of a wrath which is the necessary antagonism and recoil of pure love from such creatures as we have made ourselves to be. To speak as if the New Testament taught that ‘reconciliation’ was lop-sided-which would be a contradiction in terms, for reconciliation needs two to make it-to talk as if the New Testament taught that reconciliation was only man’s putting away his false relation to God, is, as I humbly think, to be blind to its plainest teaching. So, there being this antagonism and separation between God and man, the Gospel comes to deal with it, and proclaims that Jesus Christ has abolished the enmity, and by His death on the Cross has become our peace; and that we, by faith in that Christ, and grasping in faith His death, pass from out of the condition of hostility into the condition of reconciliation.
With this by way of basis, let us come back to my text. It sounds strange; ‘Therefore, being justified by faith, let up have peace.’ ‘Well,’ you will say, ‘but is not all that you have been saying just this, that to be justified by faith, to be declared righteous by reason of faith in Him who makes us righteous, is to have peace with God? Is not your exhortation an entirely superfluous one?’ No doubt that is what the old scribe thought who originated the reading which has crept into our Authorised Version. The two things do seem to be entirely parallel. To be justified by faith is a certain process, to have peace with God is the inseparable and simultaneous result of that process itself. But that is going rather too fast. ‘Being justified by faith let us have peace with God,’ really is just this-see that you abide where you are; keep what you have. The exhortation is not to attain peace, but retain it. ‘Hold fast that thou hast; let no man take thy crown.’ ‘Being justified by faith’ cling to your treasure and let nothing rob you of it-’let us have peace with God.’
Now a word, in the next place, as to the necessity and importance of this exhortation.
There underlies it, this solemn thought, which Christian people, and especially some types of Christian doctrine, do need to have hammered into them over and over again, that we hold the blessed life itself, and all its blessings, only on condition of our own cooperation in keeping them; and that just as physical life dies, unless by reception of food we nourish and continue it, so a man that is in this condition of being justified by faith, and having peace with God, needs, in order to the permanence of that condition, to give his utmost effort and diligence. It will all go if he do not. All the old state will come back again if we are slothful and negligent. We cannot keep the treasure unless we guard it. And just because we have it, we need to put all our mind, the earnestness of our will, and the concentration of our efforts, into the specific work of retaining it.
For, consider how manifold and strong are the forces which are always working against our continual possession of this justification by faith, and consequent peace with God. There are all the ordinary cares and duties and avocations and fortunes of our daily life, which, indeed, may be so hallowed in their motives and in their activities, as that they may be turned into helps instead of hindrances, but which require a great deal of diligence and effort in order that they should not work like grains of dust that come between the parts of some nicely-fitting engine, and so cause friction and disaster. There are all the daily tasks that tempt us to forget the things that we only know by faith, and to be absorbed in the things that we can touch and taste and handle. If a man is upon an inclined plane, unless he is straining his muscles to go upwards, gravitation will make short work of him, and bring him down. And unless Christian men grip hard and continually that sense of having fellowship and peace with God, as sure as they are living they will lose the clearness of that consciousness, and the calm that comes from it. For we cannot go into the world and do the work that is laid upon us all without there being possible hostility to the Christian life in everything that we meet. Thank God there is possible help, too, and whether our daily calling is an enemy or a friend to our religion depends upon the earnestness and continuousness of our own efforts. But there is a worse force than these external distractions working to draw us away, one that we carry within, in our own vacillating wills and wayward hearts and treacherous affections and passions that usually lie dormant, but wake up sometimes at the most inopportune periods. Unless we keep a very tight hand upon ourselves, certainly these will rob us of this consciousness of being justified by faith which brings with it peace with God that passes understanding.
In the Isle of Wight massive cliffs rise hundreds of feet above the sea, and seem as if they were as solid as the framework of the earth itself. But they rest upon a sharply inclined plane of clay, and the moisture trickles through the rifts in the majestic cliffs above, and gets down to that slippery substance and makes it like the greased ways down which they launch a ship; and away goes the cliff one day, with its hundreds of feet of buttresses that have fronted the tempest for centuries, and it lies toppled in hideous ruin on the beach below. We have all a layer of ‘blue slipper’ in ourselves, and unless we take care that no storm-water finds its way down through the chinks in the rocks above they will slide into awful ruin. ‘Being justified, let us have peace with God,’ and remember that the exhortation is enforced not only by a consideration of the many strong forces which tend to deprive us of this peace, but also by a consideration of the hideous disaster that comes upon a man’s whole nature if he loses peace with God. For there is no peace with ourselves, and there is no peace with man, and there is no peace in face of the warfare of life and the calamities that are certainly before us all, unless, in the deepest sanctuary of our being, there is the peace of God because in our consciences there is peace with God. If I desire to be at rest-and there is no blessedness but rest-if I desire to know the sovereign joy of tranquillity, undisturbed by my own stormy passions or by any human enmity, and to have even the ‘beasts of the field at peace with’ me, and all things my helpers and allies, there is but one way to realise the desire, and that is the retention of peace with God that comes with being justified by faith.
Lastly, a word or two as to the ways by which this exhortation can be carried into effect.
I have tried to explain how the peace of which my text speaks comes originally through Christ’s work laid hold of by my faith, and now I would say only three things.
Retain the peace by the exercise of that same faith which at first brought it. Next, retain it by union with that same Lord from whom you at first received it. Very significantly, in the immediate context, we have the Apostle drawing a broad distinction between the benefits which we have received from Christ’s death, and those which we shall receive through His life. And that is the best commentary on the words of my text. ‘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.’ So let our faith grasp firmly the great twin facts of the Christ who died that He might abolish the enmity, and bring us peace; and of the Christ who lives in order that He may pour into our hearts more and more of His own life, and so make us more and more in His own image. And the last word that I would say, in addition to these two plain, practical precepts is, let your conduct be such as will not disturb your peace with God. For if a man lets his own will rise up in rebellion against God’s, whether that divine will command duty or impose suffering, away goes all his peace. There is no possibility of the tranquil sense of union and communion with my Father in heaven lasting when I am in rebellion against Him. The smallest sin destroys, for the time being, our sense of forgiveness and our peace with God. The blue surface of the lake, mirroring in its unmoved tranquillity the sky and the bright sun, or the solemn stars, loses all that reflected heaven in its heart when a cat’s paw of wind ruffles its surface. If we would keep our hearts as mirrors, in their peace, of the peace in the heavens that shine down on them, we must fence them from the winds of evil passions and rebellious wills. ‘Oh! that thou wouldest hearken unto Me, then had thy peace been like a river.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 God's Salvation and the Results of its Acceptance
God's Salvation and the Results of its Acceptance
St. Paul completes his exposition of acceptance by faith by pointing to its blessed effects (Rom_5:1-11). In the following vv. he compares sin and acceptance, as to which he has shown that all men have sinned, while acceptance is open to all, and declares the cause of this universality. Sin is universal, because all men derive their being from Adam. But, over against Adam, Christ has entered into our race as its new head; and from Him, all who become His derive righteousness and life, which overpower sin and death (Rom_5:12-21).
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1-11. Acceptance brings about triumphant hope of glory, which is guaranteed by our assurance of the love of God.
Paraphrase. '(1) Blessed effects follow upon acceptance, and we should realise them. Such are reconciliation to God, (2) and admission to His gracious favour, with triumphant expectation of future glory. (3) Beyond this, we should triumph even in tribulations, because their bracing effect upon the character (4) strengthens our expectation of glory, (5) and this expectation is confirmed by a sense of God's love implanted by the Holy Ghost. (6) We are right in trusting utterly to such love as God revealed by the death of Christ. (7) Its like has never been known among men, for we were not good, (8) but sinful, when Christ died for us. (9) In view of this, we may trust Him to save us to the end. (10) For if God sacrificed His Son for His enemies, He will surely save His friends. (11) Reconciled, therefore, to God, we triumph continually in His abiding love.'
1. Therefore] cp. Rom_4:24. Justified] i.e. accepted. We have] RV 'let us have.'
2. We have access] RV 'we have had our access,' as into a king's palace: cp. Gal_5:4. Rejoice] RV 'let us rejoice.' Glory] i.e. the future and everlasting presence of God: see on Rom_3:23.
3. We glory, etc.] RV 'let us also rejoice in our tribulations': cp. Act_14:22. Worketh] i.e. brings about. Patience] i.e. bearing up under great trials without losing heart.
4. Experience] RV 'probation,' i.e. a test: here the character of one who has come through the test of suffering strong and ready for all things.
5. Maketh not ashamed] RV 'putteth not to shame,' i.e. by proving mistaken. Love of God] i.e. to us. Is given] RV 'was given,' i.e. at a definite time: cp. Act_10:44; Act_19:2. St. Paul takes it for granted that all Christians have had a definite gift of the Holy Spirit, which followed their acceptance of Christ (cp. Gal_3:2), one effect of which was to fill their hearts with a sense of God's love to them: cp. Rom_8:15.
6. Without strength] RV 'weak,' i.e.morally. In due time] i.e. when the need was greatest.
7. Righteous] i.e. just, contrasted with the more lovable 'good man.'
8. Commendeth] i.e. shows its excellence: cp. Rom_3:5.
9. Wrath] RV 'the wrath of God': see on Rom_1:18.
10. Enemies] i.e. opposing God's truth and will: cp. Rom_8:7; Col_1:21. Reconciled] cp. 2Co_5:18. Saved by his life] RM 'in his life,' i.e. saved from the power of sin now, and from death and God's wrath hereafter, through our union with the life of the risen Christ: cp. Rom_6:8.; Rom_8:10.
11. Joy] RV 'rejoice,' referring to Rom_5:2. In God] i.e. in His love and fatherhood. Now] i.e. under the gospel. Atonement] i.e. at-one-ment; RV 'reconciliation.'
12-14. Thus Christ is the head and representative of humanity, and we derive acceptance and life from Christ, as the OT. shows that we derive sin and death from Adam.
Paraphrase. '(12) Thus there are two heads, from whom the human race derives inheritance. From Adam all inherited a sinful tendency, which became active, so that all died. (13) When there is no law to be broken, there can be no guilt, yet even before the Law came, (14) death was universal, and those who had not broken any express command nevertheless died. Therefore sin and death are derived from Adam; and in this respect Christ, from whom, by union with Him, we derive righteousness and life, is Adam's counterpart.'
12. Wherefore] refers to Rom_5:9-11. As.. by sin] sentence broken off; would continue, 'so by one man righteousness and life entered.'
By one man] cp. 1Co_15:21.
45. Death] i.e. physical. Upon] RV 'unto.' For that] i.e. because. Have sinned] RV 'sinned.'
13. Was in the world] as proved by human history. Not imputed] i.e. as guilty of wilful transgression of law: cp. 4.
14. After the similitude] RV 'likeness,' i.e. by consciously breaking law.
15-21. But our inheritance from Christ more than repairs the ruin of the Fall.
Paraphrase. '(15) But the inheritances from Adam and from Christ differ in degree and in kind. For if Adam's Fall was so powerful for harm, God's favour, shown through Christ, is much more powerful for good. (16) Again, sin is so terrible, that one sin led to man's condemnation. But God's favour is still mightier, for it offers pardon to all sins. (17) So mighty is it that, while we know that Adam's sin brought death, it is much more easy to conceive that those who welcome God's bounty will attain to life and glory through Christ. (18) To sum up; one sin brought condemnation to all, but, over against this, one verdict of acquittal has brought acceptance and life within the reach of all. (19) For the obedience of the second head of humanity reverses the effect of the disobedience of the first. (20) The Law has a subordinate place; it was meant to convert the unconscious sin of the world into definite transgression, that men might learn how far they are from doing God's will. But God's favour was so stupendously manifested as to overwhelm even this multiplied sin, (21) that the power of His gracious favour might prevail over that of sin, and bring man, through the work of Christ, to acceptance and to eternal life.'
15. Offence] RV 'trespass.' The Gk. word means a 'fall.' Free gift] i.e. of acceptance.
One] RV 'the one,' i.e. Adam. Many] RV 'the many,' i.e. mankind. Be dead] RV 'died,' i.e. became liable to death through sin. Grace] see on Rom_1:5. By grace, etc.] RV 'by the grace of the one man.' Abounded] i.e. in power for good.
16. As it was by one] RV 'as through one.' To condemnation] i.e. leading to condemnation. Offences] RV 'trespasses.' Unto justification] i.e. leading to a sentence of acquittal.
17. By one] RV 'through the one.'
Abundance] refers to 'abounded,' Rom_5:15.
Righteousness] i.e. acceptance. Reign] i.e. enjoy glory, and liberty from sin and death.
Life] i.e. heavenly life.
18. By the offence of one] RV 'through one trespass.' To condemnation] i.e. leading to condemnation.
Righteousness of one] better, 'one sentence of acquittal,' passed by God in consequence of Christ's obedience: cp. Rom_5:19. Unto justification of life] i.e. leading to acceptance which results in life.
19. One] RV 'the one.'
Many] RV 'the many.' Were made sinners] in the sense of Rom_5:12-14. Shall many be made] i.e. as generation after generation arises.
20. Entered] RV 'came in beside': cp. Gal_3:19. Offence] RV 'trespass,' i.e. Adam's. Abound] i.e. multiply: cp. Rom_3:20; Rom_7:13.
Much more abound] overpowering the sin.
21. Sin, etc.] RV 'sin reigned in death,' i.e. sin had power which was death-bringing: cp. Isa_32:1. Unto.. life] i.e. resulting in.. life.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with…
Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ ;
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v1 Christ died under our sins 1Pe 2:24; 2Co 5:21…
raised
Christ died under our sins 1Pe 2:24; 2Co 5:21 that He was raised and exalted to God’s right hand, "now to appear in the presence of God for us" Heb 9:24 is the token that our sins are gone, that His work for us has the divine approbation and that we, for whom He suffered, are completely justified.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. What Justification Includes. 1-11.
CHAPTER 5:1-11
1. What Justification Includes. 1-11.
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The blessed results of justification are next revealed. What justified believers possess and what they may enjoy is the theme of the opening verses of this chapter. The first thing mentioned is that all who are justified by faith have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace was made in the blood of the Cross, He who died for our sins is our peace. His greeting to the assembled disciples on the resurrection day was “Peace be unto you,” and then He showed unto them His hands and His side, and again He said, “Peace be unto you.” This peace with God we have as believers in Christ. It is settled forever and can never be disturbed. Some times Christians ask others if they made their peace with God. They mean by it, turning away from sin, repentance, conversion, surrender, etc., as if those actions from our side could make peace with God. This is incorrect and the reason why so many professing Christians lack the assurance that they have peace with God is in this very fact, that they are constantly trying what they term “to be right with God.” Peace does not need to be made, it was made when Christ died for our sins. And into this peace we enter when we believe on the Lord Jesus and are justified freely of all things. We may live sober, earnest and useful Christian lives for fifty years or longer and at the end of such a devoted life we have not more of the peace with God than we had the moment we trusted in Christ. And our failures and stumbling walk as the “beloved of God, called Saints” our sinning, can never disturb and undo that peace.
The second result is that we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We have a perfect standing before God in Christ, and perfect access. We stand in grace, accepted in the beloved One and this grace keeps and sustains. We are the children of God made nigh by blood. Grace makes us nigh. We can draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Our faithfulness cannot increase this standing in Grace, nor can our unfaithfulness decrease it, for the simple reason that it is Grace. The third result of justification is “the hope of the glory of God” in which we can now boast. The only title to glory is the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has secured the glory for us and has made us sharers of His own glory He received from God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory. People speak of fitting themselves for heaven by living good lives. No one can be fitted for heaven. The only fitness is the new nature, received in the new birth. And that nature is given to the justified believer when he is justified by faith. That there are, special rewards for sacrificing service is very true, but to be in glory is a matter of grace and is given along with justification. The glory of God is the Hope of righteousness (Gal 5:5). These three things cover the past, the present and the future. Past; Peace was made. Present; Standing in this Grace. Future; The Hope of the Glory of God. The approach to God in the tabernacle illustrates this beautifully. First the brazen altar, the type of the sacrifice of Christ; then the laver for washing, the candlestick, the table--typifying the cleansing, light, food and fellowship, the grace wherein we stand. Then behind the veil the glory of Jehovah, which ere long God’s people shall reach when He calls them home. How happy God’s people should be in possession of such precious things with the knowledge of sins forever put away!
But we are still in the wilderness and there are tribulations. And in tribulations, as justified and assured of the glory of God, we can even boast (the word used in the Greek) in them. Tribulation worketh patience; and patience experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed. “Here is how that which is against us works for us; and notice that the very first thing effected is the breaking down of our own wills, those wills, that Jacob-like struggle so much with the will of God. Sovereign He must be; and spite of all that we have known of Him, it is what in practical detail we so little want Him to be. Amid the clouds and darkness that encompass Him in His providential dealings, faith that should find its opportunity finds oftentimes bewilderment and perplexity; yet in it we are forced to recognize our nothingness, and creep close to the side of Him who yet goes with us. Forced to let God be God, it is then that we get experience of a moral government which is that of a Father. The forcing of outward things comes to be read as drawings of Omnipotent Love that seeks us for its own delight. His ways, if still they may be beyond us, are not strange and still less adverse. They beget, not fear or misgiving, but a brightening hope, that steadies as it brightens.” (F.W. Grant)
In Rom 5:5 the Holy Spirit is mentioned for the first time in this Epistle. The highest truth is not the work of the Spirit in the believer, but the work of Christ for the believer. The Holy Spirit is here to take of the things of Christ and to show them unto us. Once more therefore Christ and His finished work and the outflow from it are mentioned. God commending His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Justified by His blood we shall be much more saved from wrath through Him. All believers are exempt from the wrath to come because they are one with Him who is the administrator of the judgments of God. And there is a second “much more”. Reconciled by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by His life, the life which is in God’s own presence and which is in us, for He is our life. And the very highest result, the joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the reconciliation.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 The Blessed Consequences of Justification.
The Blessed Consequences of Justification.
A recital of the blessings:
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v. 1. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;
v. 2. by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
v. 3. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
v. 4. and patience, experience; and experience, hope;
v. 5. and hope maketh not ashamed.
The apostle takes up the thread of his discussion by naming some of the blessed results that follow from the state of being justified, by picturing the work of God in our behalf, as He shows it to justified sinners, by showing the relation of the believers to God arising from the expiation of sin and the consequent justification. Having therefore been justified out of faith, the apostle writes. The state or condition of righteousness, of justification, has become ours, we have entered into it as the result of faith. And therefore we, literally, have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ. As the result of the vicarious work of Christ, the enmity which existed between God and us as the result of our sins has been taken away; through Him peace in relation to God was acquired and is now made the property of men in justification. This peace, then, is not the result of absolute forgiveness of our sins, but is based upon the reconciliation founded upon the atonement, which has completely altered the relation of God to them. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ this peace has been brought about, through Him by whose agency we also have had access by faith to that grace in which we now stand. The entrance, the way to salvation, lies open before us; Christ has opened the door which leads directly to grace; through Him we now have a standing as Christians. Hence the relation of peace toward God. We are justified from sins, our sins are forgiven, there is no obstruction between God and us. As a consequence, we boast upon the basis of hope of the glory of God. The Christian’s hope is a precious possession, on account of which he rejoices and glories, because the object of this hope is the glory of God, of which we shall finally be partakers, chap. 8:17. The future which opens up before the eyes of the believer is of a nature well calculated to make his entire life a waiting of eager anticipation. And therefore we glory in tribulations also, we make our boast of them. Their presence and affliction is not a source of grief to us, but of rejoicing, since we know that tribulation is followed by patience, and patience by approval, and approval by hope. The afflictions of the present life all result in our benefit, for in these trials our faith is exercised and approved. The first benefit is patience, endurance, steadfastness. The more severe the trials, the more need there is of patient endurance of suffering, of faithfulness to truth and duty. And this endurance produces approvedness, the state of the mind which has endured the test, Jas 1:12. During the affliction, faith is on trial, is being tested out. If it is of the right kind, it will emerge from the crucible purified and refined, it will be strengthened in the hope of the glory of God. And the hope of the Christian will not make ashamed; its fulfillment is absolutely certain, it must bring salvation, Rom 9:33, it cannot disappoint, Psa 22:5. This is the golden chain of blessings which come upon the believer on account of his justification, which make his whole life a happy awaiting of the glory which shall be revealed unto us on the great day.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Paul begins to tell many different things that happen when God makes believers right with him.
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Since we are justified
"Because we are justified"
we ... our
All occurrences of "we" and "our" refer to all believers and should be inclusive. (See: Inclusive "We")
through our Lord Jesus Christ
"because of our Lord Jesus Christ"
Lord
Here "Lord" means that Jesus is God.
Through him we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand
Here "by faith" refers to our trust in Jesus, which allows us to stand before God. AT: "Because we trust in Jesus, God allows us to come into his presence"
translationWords
just
faith
peace
God
lord
Jesus
grace
joy
confidence
glory
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 5 5:1–8:39 Paul now turns from the Good News about…
5:1–8:39 Paul now turns from the Good News about how people enter a relationship with God to the security of that relationship. Christians have a strong and unassailable promise because of God’s work in Christ, God’s love for them, and the power of the Holy Spirit. This theme frames the teaching of these chapters (5:1-11; 8:18-39) as Paul grounds that promise in the transfer of believers from the realm of Adam to the realm of Christ (5:12-21). No power—whether sin (ch 6), the law (ch 7), or death (8:1-13)—“will ever be able to separate us from the love of God” (8:39).
5:1 we have peace: In many manuscripts, the underlying Greek verb is indicative, as translated here. A number of other manuscripts use the subjunctive instead (let us have peace). • Peace with God does not refer to a mere feeling of peacefulness but to a real situation of peace. It is the end of hostilities between God and sinful human beings when they believe in Jesus Christ and the state of blessing and salvation that God promised his people in the end (see Isa 9:6-7; 52:7; Ezek 34:25; Nah 1:15).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.