Some fruits of the gospel
5
📚 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,5:1 Because God counts believers righteous they are in a state of peace with Him. Compare Col 1:20; Eph 2:14-17; 2 Cor 5:18-21; Isa 32:17; 53:5. Peace here means reconciliation between God and those who believe in the Lord Jesus.⚜
2 📚by whom also we have access 📖 by faith into this grace 📖 in which we stand, and rejoice in hope 📖 of the glory of God. 3 📚And not only so, but we rejoice in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation produces patient endurance 📖; 4 📚and patient endurance, approved character; and approved character, hope;
5:3-4 The question arises: Will sufferings and troubles be able to take away the peace believers have with God and destroy their hope of heaven? Paul very emphatically says, “no”. Suffering actually increases the hope of believers. So they can rejoice knowing that troubles are doing them good. The gradual process of transforming suffering into hope is something believers learn by experience. It comes step by step in the life of faith.
Suffering produces patient endurance and perseverance. Believers learn that God enables them to endure troubles and tribulations, that they can face sufferings and not draw back into unbelief (Heb 10:35-39). They learn that God is with them through the worst that can happen and keeps them in the faith (Rom 8:35-37; John 10:27-28; 1 Pet 1:5-7).
Perseverance produces character. Enduring trials and troubles makes believers better, stronger people, more able to face such things in the future. And by this process the hope they had when they first believed increases and becomes even stronger.⚜
5 📚 and hope brings no disappointment, because the love of God has been poured 📖 out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us.
5:5 God has not given believers hope of final salvation so that He can disappoint them at last. Believers can know that God will give them that for which He has caused them to hope. This confidence is rooted in the knowledge of God’s love which the Holy Spirit pours into their hearts.⚜
6 📚For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 📚For scarcely will someone die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man some might even dare to die. 8 📚But God demonstrates his love toward us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
5:6-8 See the words Paul uses here to describe us before we became believers – “without strength”, “ungodly”, and “sinners”. He adds one more in v 10 – “enemies”. In other words, by nature we were bad (Rom 3:23; Gen 8:21; Jer 17:9; Matt 7:11). We did not have the one true God and did not really want Him, because we preferred our sin to Him. Because of this we were His enemies, for all sin is against Him (Ps 51:5). To be on the side of that which is opposed to God is to be His enemy (compare Jam 4:4). And we were powerless to make ourselves good, stop sinning, and become God’s friends. These things were not merely difficult for us, but totally impossible.
We see from this the impossibility of the popular ways of salvation men sometimes teach – the way of jnana or karma or bhakti (knowledge and wisdom, the practice of one’s religion and good deeds or worship). But what we could not do God did. Christ came and died in our place and took away our sin. Then, when we believed, He counted us righteous because of Christ’s shed blood (v 9). He made us His friends (v 10). He changed our whole experience and outlook (vs 1-4). He made us new people with His own Spirit in us (v 5).⚜
9 📚 Much more then, now having been justified by his blood, we will be saved from God’s wrath 📖 through him. 10 📚For if when we were his enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, having been reconciled, we will be saved by his life.
5:9-10 These words are based on the demonstration of God’s love at the cross of Christ and teach us this: Christ died for believers when they were unbelieving and His enemies, and counted them righteous when they believed and made them His friends. This is very certain, but it is even more certain that He will keep them saved and finish the work He began when He died for them.⚜
11 📚And not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received reconciliation 📖.
5:5-11 These verses show that the hope of believers is based on God’s love. And this is a very strong foundation indeed. The theme is the certainty of final salvation. Paul’s argument is this: God revealed His great love to us when we were His enemies. Now that we have become His friends will that same love not keep us to the end? Compare Rom 8:35-39.⚜
5:11 All this is a cause of rejoicing to those who understand it. This brings us back to v 2.⚜
Adam brought sin and death, Christ brings righteousness and life
12 📚Therefore, as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death came on all men, because all sinned –
5:12 All human beings are sinners because the one man Adam sinned and became a sinner – Gen 2:17; 3:1-19. He produced children in his likeness (Gen 4:1) and they in their likeness, and so sinfulness like a dread disease was passed on from generation to generation (Gen 8:21; Ps 51:5; 58:3; Jer 17:9). And this disease of sin inevitably brings death – Rom 6:23. All men became sinners because of Adam. Not only so, we may even say that all men sinned in Adam, for the whole of mankind was in him when he sinned (compare Heb 7:9-10). What he did they all did in him. He was at the time the whole of mankind, being the only man on earth.⚜
13 📚for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not put into the account when there is no Law 📖. 14 📚Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s transgression, who is a type of him who was to come.
15 📚But the free gift is not like the offense. For if through the offense of one man many have died, much more the grace of God and the gift 📖 by grace, through one man, Jesus Christ, has overflowed to many 📖. 16 📚And the gift is not like the result of the one who sinned. For the judgment came through one man bringing condemnation, but the free gift which followed many offenses was for justification.
5:16 The “judgment” was God’s judgment which said “you will surely die” (Gen 2:17), and this condemnation came on all men because of the one sin of their forefather Adam. God’s gift, on the other hand, provides the way of escape, not merely from the one sin of Adam, but from the vast number of sins committed throughout history. Adam’s sin brought condemnation to people, but God’s grace takes away condemnation and makes them righteous when they believe (Rom 3:22-24).⚜
17 📚For if through one man’s offense death reigned 📖 through that one, much more will those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through one, Jesus Christ.
18 📚Therefore, just as through the offense of one man judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation 📖, so also through the righteous act of one 📖 the free gift which results in justification of life came to all men 📖. 19 📚For just as through one man’s disobedience 📖 many were made sinners, so by the obedience 📖 of one many will be made righteous.
Grace reigns through Christ
20 📚Moreover the Law 📖 came in so that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more abundantly, 21 📚so that as sin reigned in death 📖, even so might grace reign through righteousness resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
5:1-21 Paul has shown that all are sinners and that the way of salvation is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In this chapter he tells us further things about those whom God has counted righteous. His theme is the certainty of salvation for believers. They have all entered into a new state, and Paul says the following things of them.
They have peace with God (v 1)
They have continual access into God’s presence (v 2)
They have hope (v 2)
They have an ability to rejoice in sufferings (v 3)
They can know that sufferings increase hope (v 4)
They have the gift of the Holy Spirit (v 5)
They have a knowledge of God’s love (vs 5-8)
They have absolute security (vs 9,10)
They have joy in God (v 11)
They have eternal life in a new relationship with God (vs 12-21), having entered into the realm of unconquerable grace.⚜
5:12-21 Here is a contrast between Adam, the forefather and the representative of the human race, and Christ, the head and representative of those whom God has counted righteous. Through Adam sin and death came to the human race. Through Christ righteousness and life have come. Paul’s purpose here is to show that life through Christ is even more certain than death through Adam, and to reveal more of the greatness of what God has done in Christ to overcome the effects of Adam’s fall into sin and death.⚜