Focus Verse of the Week
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:1, ESV)
Classic Commentary
Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Notice here the difference of Abraham’s faith and ours. He believed God could perform what He promised. We are called to believe He has already performed His promise. Faith in God’s word, believing God, and laying hold on His power in resurrection is faith that this has lifted us out of the whole effect of our sins. It rests in God’s power as having worked out this deliverance for us, and justified us. Christ has been delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification.
The apostle Paul 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). He sets before us the effect of these truths when received by faith through the power of the Holy Spirit. 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 favor, 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 offenses, 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 Savior God. I stand as a present thing in that grace or favor, God’s blessed ever-present favor resting on me, which is better than life. Through Christ, I am even now in the enjoyment of His favor, 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 all been settled in Christ’s death and resurrection.
As to the present time, I am brought into His presence in the enjoyment of His favor. Grace characterizes 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 favor of God, and His glory for our hope. All is connected with His power in resurrection – peace with God already settled, the present favor of God, and the hope of glory.
(Adapted from John Darby’s Synopsis of the New Testament, Romans 5.)
A Thought to Keep
If you know Christ, are you living like the burdens have been lifted and the work completed? Or are you struggling to find peace?
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