Romans No.9 Peace with God

Let's turn to Romans chapter 5. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Acts and Romans follow on, the seventh book, no it's not, the sixth book in the New Testament, if you'd like to find it, and we turn to the fifth chapter of Romans, chapter of Romans, the sixth book. Romans chapter 5, let me explain for folk who are present for the first time, you've been given some notes, I won't stick to them, though I will have the gist of the notes in my mind, should have, as I was doing it in the early hours, that's why there's one or two mistakes actually on my word processor that I didn't pick up on the final reading before it went to our printer, but I'll stick to the gist of what's there, but not all of what's there. The value of the notes is really for you later on, if you want to go through the study afresh later tonight, or if you want to come back to the book of Romans in a few months' time, if you've collected all the notes, then it does mean that you've got a simple commentary on that book, and just some seed thoughts that have suggested themselves as being important to me, thus the nature of our outline.

All right, Romans 5, let me read to you the first 11 verses, if I may. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope.

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man, someone might possibly dare to die.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were sinners, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him? For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life? Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Well, I put it to you that those are some of the most lovely verses that you can read in the whole of Scripture. They speak to us about a commodity that a lot of people in our world would love to obtain. I refer to peace.

And in my notes, I make mention of the fact that, remarkably, one of the first books that Billy Graham ever wrote, Peace with God, is still in circulation and selling, so I understand, by great numbers. Many, many people who want to know something of the peace of God. And you remember, this was basically the reason why the Apostle Paul has written this epistle.

Now, he's written not as an academic theologian. He's written as a man who has an experience of what he is setting down in this letter. You see, if there's one thing Paul didn't have in his pre-Christian days, it was peace.

That's why he was charging around, almost literally so, on the horse that was taking him from Jerusalem to Damascus with the aim of ridding the community there, the Jewish community there, of those who had committed their lives to Jesus Christ. Paul was a man who had no peace at all. And then he was on horse.

Do you remember the story in the Acts of the Apostles? The Lord Jesus revealed himself to Paul, and he made a commitment. He was reconciled to the Lord Jesus, reconciled to the Father. He found what had eluded him in the early years of his life.

And if you ask Paul to give a summation, to give a summary of what his discovery was, he would say, I found peace. I found peace. Now, of course, I don't have time this evening, and it wouldn't be right, because many of you have been along at these previous eight studies to summarize in detail all the first four chapters.

But in one sense, you've got to have what's gone before in your mind so that you're launched, at least you are standing ready to be launched into this fifth chapter. The opening word is therefore. In other words, an argument has proceeded, which the Apostle Paul now builds on.

And that argument, you remember, in very, very quick fashion as I present it to you, was that the whole world is guilty before God, Jews and Gentiles. He works that out in the first three chapters. And then he deals with the problem of Abraham.

How did Abraham come to be known as a friend of God? And he works out historically how Abraham, he's declared to be righteous before God, not as a result of what he did, but rather as a result of what he believed. And he demonstrates, does the Apostle Paul in the fourth chapter particularly, that Abraham, no less than you and I, needed to commit his life to the Lord God and to obey what God had told him? Now, he sees Abraham as the father, not of just the Jews, but the father of all people who have expressed faith in God. In one sense, Christian people look to Abraham, if you like, as being their father.

So, with this in mind, the need of the world, the way that God has met that need through Jesus Christ and the gospel that he proclaims, through the example of Abraham, he's ready, is the Apostle, to take us into these new thoughts in this fifth chapter. Therefore, since we, those of us who have like faith as Abraham, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He brings together four of the most delicious words that Paul has in his vocabulary.

He speaks of faith, he speaks of peace, he speaks of grace, and he speaks of hope. We have peace with God. Now, our Lord Jesus spoke sometimes, did he not, of the peace of God.

And in one sense, that's a subjective thing. It's what you and I feel as a consequence of being Christians, a mind at perfect peace with God, or what a rest is this. But it's not just a subjective feeling of peace that Paul is referring to here.

It's the objective way in which peace has been made through the Lord Jesus. What prevented you and me from having a relationship with God? Well, it was your sin. It was my sin.

It was an obstacle, impenetrable. You couldn't get over it. You couldn't get under it.

You couldn't get through it. You couldn't get around it. But when Jesus came, he takes the obstacle away.

And because he's cleared that out of the way, there is a possibility of you and me being reconciled to God and therefore having peace. You remember how the writer of the prophet, or Isaiah the prophet, says of our Lord Jesus Christ, the chastisement of our peace was upon him. Or let me express that better.

The punishment that brought us peace was upon him. What does that mean? Well, he is the Lord Jesus. He's on the cross.

Why is he on the cross? Because of what you have done, what I have done. We should have been there. We should have been punished, but we're not punished.

Why? Well, the chastisement, the punishment that was ours is placed on him and the result is the peace that we couldn't have had otherwise is now ours. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus. Now, this peace is appropriated by faith.

Not everyone has it because not everyone has exercised faith, have they? Many of your neighbors are not Christians. That's not to say they're not good people. Some very good people who are not Christians, but they have not exercised a faith that is necessary to have their sins forgiven and to know this profound, deep peace that comes from God.

Faith is wrapping oneself round, if you like, the finished work of Christ. The ivy in your garden cannot stand alone, can it? It needs a fence. It needs a tree.

It needs a wall because ivy does not have the stability to grow up strong in its own strength. Now, that's the same with you and me. You see, we need someone to cling on to and we have been brought face to face with our Lord Jesus Christ.

We recognize who he is and we have now committed ourselves completely to him, trusting in him for our salvation. That's what it means by appropriating this peace through faith in our Lord Jesus. But then that other, and I use the term deliberately, delicious word of the Apostle Paul is grace.

Look at the second verse. Through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. You see, the thing about the gospel that you always need to have in mind is that though our salvation is affected by our Lord Jesus, he is not the only person of the Godhead involved in making salvation available.

God so loved the world, he gave, didn't he? Now, that's what grace is. Grace is giving. When you say a prayer before a meal, you are responding to the kindness of God in providing food and we refer to that prayer as the grace, don't we? And in one sense, that helps us to understand what God has done for us, not just provided us with food for our breakfast, our lunch, our tea or what have you.

He has provided us with the Lord Jesus. It is of God the Father's initiative that the Lord Jesus comes into this world and he's offered to us as the means of salvation. He came to his own, but his own didn't receive him.

There was a possibility of them entering into the grace of God, but they didn't want it, but to as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. It's all of grace, you see. And in one sense, this grace could be seen in terms of, well, when the queen appreciates who you are and what you have done and ultimately your name is in the queen's birthday honors list and you're invited to Buckingham Palace and you get the insignia of the MBE, you don't believe me that this is going to happen, do you? But you can always wish that it might.

You will have the privilege of entering into the very presence of the Queen of England. No longer will you need your binoculars to see what Buckingham Palace is like on the inside or the little bit of the inside that you can see from the road. You can go right through into the palace itself.

That's what grace does for you and for me. It gives us an access, an access into the presence of God. And in the presence of God, in this grace of God, we can stand.

We're not cringing in his presence anymore. Now, don't misunderstand me. That doesn't mean to say that we refrain to give God the honor and glory that's due to him because of his majesty and his power.

But you and I, as we become sons of the living God, we have benefited enormously by the salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in that sense, we can stand in his presence. We can hold our heads high because of what has happened to us.

You know, the dear man that I took the memorial service for yesterday, John Parsons, he had quite a number of personal problems. He wouldn't mind me saying that. In fact, I think he would delight in me saying that because he would like his testimony and his experience still to live on.

And I explained to his three sons and to a very substantial congregation yesterday, how when John first came into the tabernacle, he had such a low esteem of himself. You see, he had a problem with alcoholism. I don't know how you cope with drink as a Christian, and I'm not wanting to be legalistic in any fashion, but we must always remember this ugly difficulty that many, many people face in terms of the abuse of drink.

And the first address that John ever heard in the tab was actually not from me. This is why I can use the illustration without blushing. It was from Richard Sharp.

And Richard was speaking one evening on the subject of accepting yourself as God accepts you. And it was as a result of this that John came to a realization that this God and this gospel that Jesus Christ came to present was one that was tailor-made to meet John at the point of his greatest need and to give John back a sense of dignity, self-esteem and worth. And that's what the gospel does, isn't it? That's why I say these are delicious words that the apostle Paul uses.

He speaks of the peace, our peace with God. He speaks of the faith, the way that we capitulate to the claims of Jesus. We cling to the Lord Jesus as a drowning man might cling to someone who comes out to rescue him.

We experience the grace of God. We stand in his presence as his sons. But there's even more to it than that.

There's this final word in this opening part. There's this concept of hope. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

That's the last part of verse two, isn't it? This is something, you see, that we still have in the future to look on, to look towards with great enthusiasm, expectancy. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. We have a great hope as Christian people, don't we? Hope is faith in the future tense, says one Bible commentator.

Look at that little quote that I give at the bottom of the first page. Adoniram Judson, missionary to Burma. My future is as bright as the promises of God.

I don't know what you think of your future prospects from a human point of view. From a spiritual point of view, they are very, very hopeful indeed because of what the cross of our Lord Jesus has gained in terms of your redemption. So then those opening verses, they speak to us of this peace and faith and grace and hope that are all part of our legacies as Christian people.

Now, as a result of this, let's go on to the third verse. As a result of this, not only we rejoice in hope of the prospects that are in front of us, but also we can cope as reasonable people with the problems that are at the moment part of our lives. Not only so, that's a favorite expression of the Apostle Paul.

You'll find him using it twice in this chapter, also in the seventh chapter and the ninth chapter. Not only do we rejoice in hope, but because of this peace and this faith and this grace that are ours, we can cope with our present situations. In fact, we can rejoice in suffering because we know that suffering produces perseverance and perseverance character and character hope.

Now, the Apostle is very convincing when he says this. I argue that because of his life. You see, sometimes when you hear someone give a testimony and tell you how to cope with difficult experiences, unless they have actually been in the position that they are giving you advice on, then you might question that they really don't know what they're talking about.

I never really knew experimentally what it was to cope with death until my father died. I'd taken many a funeral service, but I've never taken a funeral service since that day in the way that I took it before. Not that I didn't have compassion before, but there is some way that you've got to go through an experience to be able to relate to the situation as other folks have, who have experienced the problem previously.

Now, here is the Apostle, you see, and he knows about this suffering, doesn't he? He knows about the perseverance that suffering produces and the character that develops as a result, and so on and so forth, because all this has happened to him. He's very much a practical theologian, and Paul is able to rejoice in his suffering. Look at him there in jail with his friend Silas.

I mean, they've got songs of fellowship, and they're going through them all, aren't they, one after another, late at night, to the extent that the Roman God is very, very astonished that men can sing in jail. And it's a great testimony to ordinary folk when they see Christians in difficulty coping with their circumstances. I do believe that it's God's will and God's, in some cases, and God certainly has the ability to heal.

But I also think that the flip side of God not healing can often redound to an even greater glory when you get a man like we had at the Tab the other day, a paraplegic who can say that he couldn't care less whether he walks again as long as he can live his life extending the kingdom of God through his ministry. Wasn't that fantastic? I mean, you would really have to be a very insensitive man not to have been moved by just seeing this speaker, let alone with what he had to say. You see, it's all right for me saying, well, you know, those people in Siberia, those Christians, well, God can meet them at the point of their need and so on and so forth.

I've never been to Siberia. I'd never been a prisoner. I never had these difficulties.

But when God triumphs by his grace in the circumstances through which you're passing, then you have a very persuasive argument to offer other people. And thus the Apostle Paul, he speaks about rejoicing, not only in the hope of what's around the corner, but he rejoices even in his sufferings because he has demonstrated in his life that his sufferings have produced the sort of character that he wasn't before he went through these rather difficult experiences. So he's got hope, hope in the future, hope for the presence.

And he links this hope, doesn't he, to the love of God, which has been poured out in him by the Holy Spirit. Verse five. First reference, incidentally, to the Holy Spirit in this epistle.

Paul is going to say a lot more about the Holy Spirit in the eighth chapter, but he's referring to the Holy Spirit right now here in the fifth chapter. You see, it's the Holy Spirit who confirms to us our need of salvation and the love of God as demonstrated through our Lord Jesus Christ. It's most important that you and I realize the place that the Holy Spirit plays in our conversion, the part that the Holy Spirit plays in our conversion, isn't it? Now, you'll not misunderstand this and take it as a pompous remark, and one since I'm a book man.

I love books. I'm quite happy to take a handful of theological tomes in my holiday and work my way through it or through them. My wife can't understand it, particularly when I'm on the beach with one, but I mean, give me that any day to Agatha Christie or the newspapers.

But you see, it's not just being a book man that makes you a Christian, is it? It's not just an understanding of theology. Some of the people who've put me off more than any others in the Christian church are those who are theologians full stop. It's just not a knowledge of doctrine that confirms that you are a Christian.

There was nothing wrong with the doctrine of the Pharisees. They were the orthodox religionists of their day. But when the Son of God came walking in the streets of Palestine, they missed him completely.

It's more than just doctrine. It's truth, but truth plus spirit. And the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts confirms the truth that intellectually we have received.

Some people back off from the experience of the Spirit, but you can't really do that and be a biblical Christian. The Holy Spirit is poured out into our hearts in the sense of an experimental awareness that we are children of God. You know, John Calvin, he's a good theologian, and I think he was a very good man, actually.

But he was an experimental theologian. You would never have got into his church in Geneva unless you convinced him, not only that you knew the truth of the gospel, but you had had an experience of the grace of God in your heart and life. They used to test them in Geneva, in his church.

He didn't just sign on the dotted line. They would interrogate people that something real had taken place in their lives and that there'd been this character change before you could become a card-carrying member of his church. Well, you see, my brothers and sisters, it's this challenge of coping with the present on the basis having received peace with God that the apostle highlights in this fifth chapter, in this fifth verse, and he makes it plain that our understanding of the gospel includes the mind, but it transcends the mind because it affects the emotions also.

Now he continues to develop his argument. He's talked about the love of God emotionally. God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, but he's not going to stay with the emotion.

He's going to tie it into the historic reality of the death of Christ. Verse 6, you see, we often use that expression, don't we, when we're trying to explain or get the point across to someone. Have you seen? Have you understood? Well, says the apostle, you see, in regard to God pouring out his love into your heart, you see what I mean? If you don't, let me turn you to Calvary.

What happened at the cross? How did Jesus die? Why did Jesus die? For whom did Jesus die? These are things that the apostle touches on in this sixth verse. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. You see what Paul is doing now? He's showing us just how God pours out his love.

He did it historically through our Lord Jesus, and he did it at a time when men were utterly weak, unable to save themselves. Nothing in my hand I bring, says the hymn writer, when he speaks of his salvation. Simply to the cross of Christ I cling.

Now, what does Paul highlight when he speaks about the powerlessness of men? Well, the incredible thing is, he goes on to highlight the weakness of Christ, doesn't he? You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for us. He doesn't highlight the obedience of Christ, though he was obedient. He doesn't highlight the triumph of Christ, though he was triumphant.

He places against our powerlessness the death of the Lord Jesus. This is why I argue the Christian gospel must be inspired, because if this was of human fabrication, you wouldn't put a statement about the death of Christ alongside human weakness. You would bring out the power and the glory and the majesty, the omnipotence of Christ, but no.

You see, because within the gospel, the secret of God, whereby he makes men and women right with himself, fundamental to that gospel is the death of his own beloved son. What amazes me about Christianity over against platonic philosophy is that at the heart of the Christian gospel, the hero dies. You see, it's tragic, isn't it? If I was writing a religion, I wouldn't write this plot in.

The key act to dying, my leading figure, would be a sort of James Bond incarnate. But you see, the gospel is the very opposite of the way that human reasoning would take you. That's why it's rejected by the intellectuals of the day, down the centuries to the 20th century.

This is the astonishing thing. The powerlessness of man is met with the seeming powerlessness of Christ. Ah, but that powerlessness of Christ needs examination.

This man who dies, this bedraggled, blood-stained figure on the central cross, there's more in it, my friend, than meets the eye. Stay around. On the third day, he's brought back from the grave in the power of an endless life.

And he demonstrates that his death is the atoning death. His blood pays the price, whereby sins are forgiven on the part of those who have trusted him. You see, it's a great work of salvation, isn't it? It's a work of recovery that is hardly illustrated in normal human behavior pattern.

Verse 7, very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man. The apostle doesn't say it will never happen. He almost teeters on the brink of saying that, but he realizes that occasionally there may be times when someone will risk their life for another.

But usually if you risk your life for another, there's something about the person that causes you to do it. I don't think it would be a problem for me to give my life for my wife or for brothers and sisters here that I love in the tab. I say that with some caution.

I'm weighing my words, but I don't think it would be very difficult. I don't really. But I'm not too sure that someone who's been a pain in the neck for the last 20 years, who really has got under the skin that I shouldn't have to get under if I was a good evangelical, because I should be free from the old Adamic nature, but I'm not, I find it very difficult to die for them.

I could tell you one or two on my road who I find it very difficult to die for. But you see, the incredible thing is that this man on the center cross is dying not for those who are lovable, but for those who are unlovable. Not for those who have any basic human attraction, but for those who are almost Frankenstein when compared to the beauty of God and the loveliness of heavenly beings.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were yet still sinners, Christ died for us. Never forget, although you stand in his presence as a son of God and a daughter of God, never forget what you were.

Be honest when you sing hymns. I know that's a hobby horse of mine, dishonesty in hymn singing, but I think there's a lot of it. You know, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like you.

No, that saved a wretch like me. Do you really believe that? Remember what you were, just help you to present a continuing humility in your relationships with one another and in your relationship with God. When we were unlovely, Christ died for us.

And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? Why was that a problem for Wesley? Well, Wesley knew what he was like, as you know what you are like. If you were God, I speak as a fool, would you have died for such a person as you? And the answer is no, because you can't understand the proportions of the love of God. He loves because he loves.

The proof of the love of God? Well, it's historically anchored in the death of our Lord Jesus. It's emotionally diffused through the entry into our heart of the Holy Spirit. And that's rather marvelous, isn't it? All our spiritual experience as brothers and sisters is traceable back to the cross.

I don't know how you theologize Christian experience. I've long since given up fight in regard to definitions, terminologies of baptism of the Spirit, fullness of the Spirit, what have you. All I will say is that it all emanates from the cross.

It's there that we recognize the dimensions of the love of God. And it's at the cross that sometimes we're lost in wonder, love and praise. Well, then let's hasten on and very quickly to the final few verses.

Here is good assurance. I was telling the folk who came to that funeral service from the excess. That though their policies were very good, they fell short of what the gospel offered.

You ought to have listened, ought to have seen the faces of some of them when I dared to say that. It's true, isn't it? You know, your insurance rep comes along and he says, but here you are as a healthy 40 year old, you're making a packet of money. Now, when you get to 65, you're going to need so much to be able to maintain your standard of living.

So what do you do? Well, you take out a policy with us, you know, and then you'll be all right. Life policies, they call it. Do you know, it's a prostitution of the word life policy.

It's a death policy, actually. But they don't use the word death policy because if they did, they'd never flog them. So, isn't it? See, you take out the nastiness.

I mean, I would, my wife would be a very rich man if I died at the moment because of the life policy that there is on me. But it's not a life policy, it's a death policy. She'd be all right, but well, as a Christian, I would be okay.

Let's get away from, I once heard a preacher say about a famous evangelist who died, he's gone to be with the Lord, poor chap. He didn't really mean that, but we evangelicals can sometimes be a bit slap-happy in our terminology, can't we? Why am I saying all that? Verse 9, blessed assurance, since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him? You see, it's that anger of God that Paul was afraid of that comes out in the first chapter, that anger of God that tyrannized Martin Luther. All that has been ameliorated.

It's not that God has suddenly placed a smile on his face for no reason at all, but rather the wrath of God has been deflected to the Lord Jesus who's taken the consequences of our sin as a lightning conductor takes the flash of electricity and deflects it as a result from the farmhouse and thus preserving the security of the building. The wrath of God has been removed from us through our Lord Jesus. We are saved by his blood.

Never blush to talk about the blood of our Lord Jesus. Some of our modern hymns hardly give the blood of Christ any recognition at all. There's wonder-working power in the blood of Calvary.

That was a good hymn. Should still be in hymns of faith. How much more then shall we be saved from God's wrath through him? For if when, verse 10, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life? Let me read a comment of a colleague of mine with whom I was at Theological College, Stuart Elliott.

If he did such good to us when we were sinners and enemies, it is certain that he will do even more good to us now that we are his friends. His death secured our reconciliation. How much more shall his life secure our final salvation? So then we rejoice in all that God has granted to us since the day we became Christians.

And verse 11 picks up the theme of rejoicing once more, doesn't it, as Paul seals this part of his argument. Not only is this so, see how he's using that expression again that we found in the third verse, not only so. Not only is this so, but also rejoice, we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation.

And you know, I'll let this be my final comment. You could translate that in the imperative. Or you could translate it not just in a command to rejoice, but rather an invitation for Christian brothers and sisters to remind one another of their need to rejoice in the Lord.

I had a dispute with a solicitor in town a little while ago. He wasn't over any legal matter. He doesn't come to our church and he thinks we sing too much.

And I was trying to convince him that it wasn't just a question of us singing, you know, filling in the first 20 minutes with song while late comers came along, gathered in. But rather our song is part of our worship, not so? Rejoicing in the Lord. It's very often that those first 10, 15 or 20 minutes that helps me at any rate, maybe you're different.

I'm sure that many of you are far, far more holy. But it helps me to get my mind clear of the things that have been troubling me during the last few hours into a right position where I'm prepared to come to the Word of God and someone can expound it and speak God's Word to me. Now, as we praise the Lord, it creates a platform in our personalities by which we can move out into the Word of God and have it taught and applied to us.

So there we are, my friends. We'll do work through those notes further on this grand topic of peace with God, which belongs to you and to me through our Lord Jesus and brings to us with it faith, grace, hope, and that final word which the apostle tucks in right at the end, also joy. May you know those virtues developing in your own experience more and more.

Let's sing another hymn, a favorite of mine, a modern one. Jesus is King and I will extol Him. The reason why we're singing that is because I think that second verse is brilliant.

We have a hope that is steadfast and certain, gone through the curtain and touching the throne. We have a priest who is there interceding, pouring His grace on our lives day by day. 277 if you can't see the overhead.

Stand and sing it. Let's enjoy singing it. Jesus is King and I will extol Him.

The reason why we're singing that is We have a hope that is steadfast and certain, Gone through the curtain and touching the thrones. We have a priest who is there interceding, Pouring his grace down our lives day by day. We come to him, a priest and apostle, Clothing his glory and bearing his name.

Laying our lives with gladness before him, Filled with his spirit we worship the king. O holy one, our hearts to adore you, Filled with your goodness we give you our prayers. Angels in light with worship surround him, Jesus our savior, however they're saying.

Amen.