D. The blessings which accompany justification: peace, joy, hope, love (5:1–11)
D. The blessings which accompany justification: peace, joy, hope, love (5:1–11)
Having set out God’s way of justifying sinners, and established it on a scriptural basis, Paul now lists the blessings which accrue to those whose faith has been counted to them for righteousness. The first of these is peace with God. Men and women who were formerly in a state of rebellion against him have now been reconciled to him by the death of Christ. It was the purpose of God, as Paul says in another place, to ‘reconcile to himself all things’ through Christ, but pre-eminently to reconcile those who once were ‘estranged and hostile’ to him at heart (Col. 1:20–22). And the fact that the death of Christ has accomplished this reconciliation has been a matter of plain experience in the lives of successive generations of believers. The reconciliation is something that God has already effected through Christ, and men and women are called upon to accept it, to enter into the good of it, to be at peace with God.
This peace carries with it free access to God; the former rebels are not merely forgiven by having their due punishment remitted; they are brought into a place of high favour with God—‘this grace in which we stand’. It is through Christ that they have entered into this state of grace, and through him, too, that they rejoice in their hope of glory. Peace and joy are twin blessings of the gospel: as an old preacher put it, ‘peace is joy resting; joy is peace dancing.’
Three objects of joy are mentioned here: the first is the hope of glory. More about this glory will come into view in the eighth chapter. But the glory of God is the end for which he created mankind (see note on 3:23), and it is through the redemptive work of Christ that this end will be achieved. So long as his people exist in mortal body, it remains a hope, but it is a sure hope, one that is certain of fulfilment, because those who cherish it have already received the guarantee of its realization in the gift of the Holy Spirit, who fills their hearts with the love of God.
The second object of joy is unexpected: ‘we rejoice in our sufferings’ (verse 3). If this seems strange to us, let us remind ourselves that in the New Testament suffering is viewed as the normal experience of a Christian. New converts were warned that the kingdom of God could be entered only ‘through many tribulations’ (Acts 14:22); and when tribulation came their way, as it regularly did, they could not complain that they had not been prepared for it. But suffering was not only regarded as an inevitable feature of the Christian lot; it was looked upon as a token of true Christianity, as a sign that God counted those who endured it worthy of his kingdom (cf. 2 Thess. 1:5). Besides, it had a salutary moral effect on those who experienced it, for it helped them to cultivate endurance and steadfastness of character, and when these were linked to Christian faith, Christian hope was the more stimulated.
Above all, believers learnt to rejoice in God himself (verse 11). The coming glory was not merely recompense for the suffering of the present; it was the product of that suffering (cf. 8:17b; 2 Cor. 4:17). Every one who discerned the hope of glory in the suffering could rejoice in the one and the other, but chiefly in God—‘God my exceeding joy’, as the psalmist said (Ps. 43:4).
And why not rejoice in God? His people have been reconciled to him by the death of Christ and experience daily deliverance from evil through Christ’s resurrection life, while the end to which they confidently look forward is no longer the outpouring of divine wrath but the unveiling of divine glory. And from first to last they ascribe their blessings to God’s love. It was because of that love that Christ laid down his life for them when they were weak, sinful and totally unattractive. Human love will go to death itself for those who are its natural objects, but hardly for the unlovely and unloving. Yet this is where the love of God shines most brightly: God confirms his love to us in the fact that Christ died for us while we were in a state of rebellion against him. So entirely at one are the Father and the Son that the self-sacrifice of the latter can be presented as a token of the love of the former. The death of Christ is indeed the supreme manifestation of God’s love. What a perversion of the divine character it is to imagine that Christ died for human beings in order to make God love them! That a change in their relation to God is brought about by the death of Christ is clearly taught here and elsewhere; but no change is involved in the reality of God’s love.
Love, joy, peace and hope, then, the true fruit of the Spirit, mark the lives of those who have been justified by faith in God. The guilty past has been cancelled, the glory of the future is assured, and here and now the presence and power of the Spirit of God secure to believers all the grace they need to endure trial, to resist evil, and to live as befits those whom God has declared righteous.
1. We have peace with God. Should we read ‘we have peace’ (echomen, indicative) or, with the margin, ‘let us have peace’ (echōmen, subjunctive)? The attestation for the latter is rather stronger (it is exhibited by the first hand in the Alexandrian codices Aleph and B and by the western codex D and the Latin versions) than for the former (to which the text in Aleph and B was corrected by a later hand and which is exhibited by the western codex G and by the majority of later witnesses). But the context supports ‘we have peace’ (cf. verse 11, ‘we have now received our reconciliation’), NEB ‘let us continue at peace with God’ tries to do justice to both readings.18
2. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand. Many witnesses (including Aleph, A and the majority of later manuscripts) add ‘by faith’ after ‘we have obtained access’ (cf. RSV mg). Even if not originally expressed, it is implied (cf. 11:20, ‘you stand fast only through faith’). Cf. Ephesians 2:18, ‘through him we … have access in one Spirit to the Father.’ ‘Access’ denotes the privilege of approaching or being introduced into the presence of someone in high station, especially a royal or divine personage. Here Christ is viewed as ushering believers into their new state of grace and acceptance before God (cf. also Eph. 3:12).
And we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God, for which we were created and from which through sin we fall short (3:23). RSV adds sharing to complete the sense; it is not expressed in the Greek text. The verb ‘rejoice’ (as also in verse 3) might, so far as the form (kauchōmetha) goes, be either indicative (‘we rejoice’) or subjunctive (‘let us rejoice’); the indicative suits the context better. ‘We rejoice’ (like ‘we have obtained access’) is probably linked with ‘through him’; cf. Colossians 1:27, ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory.’
5. Hope does not disappoint us. Lit. ‘does not put to shame’; cf. Isaiah 28:16, LXX (quoted in 9:33; 10:11). A hope which fails of realization does put one to shame, but the hope which is based on the promise of God is assured of fulfilment (cf. 8:24–25).
God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. This reference to the Spirit’s work in the believer anticipates the fuller account given below in chapter 8. His indwelling presence is the pledge of that glory for which the believer hopes. The love which is his primary ‘fruit’ (Gal. 5:22) has its origin in God and is reproduced in the children of God.
6. At the right time. That is, at the time of greatest need, when nothing but his death would help.
Christ died for the ungodly. And therefore the paradox of 4:5, that God ‘justifies the ungodly’, is seen to be righteously based.
7–8. Perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. ‘A good man’ is literally ‘the good man’ (RV), where the definite article indicates a particular type of man. There is little distinction between ‘righteous’ and ‘good’ in this verse; ‘good’ represents agathos, not chrēstos (‘kindly’). Some would take ‘good’ as neuter here, as though it denoted a good cause rather than a good man, but this is unlikely. ‘Even for one who is righteous or good’, Paul argues, ‘you will scarcely find any one willing to sacrifice his life—well, perhaps a few people might go so far as to do so—but God shows his love for us in Christ’s sacrificing his life for those who were neither righteous nor good, but ungodly sinners’ (cf. 1 John 4:10).
9. Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood. His ‘blood’, as in 3:25, denotes his sacrificial death; ‘by his blood’ here is parallel to ‘by the death of his Son’ in verse 10.
Much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. Lit. ‘from the wrath’; the RSV addition ‘of God’ is epexegetic (cf. 12:19). In 1 Thessalonians 1:10 Jesus is called our deliverer ‘from the wrath to come’; here, as there, the outpouring of judgment at the end-time is in view. See also 1 Thessalonians 5:9, ‘God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Those who have been pronounced righteous by God can rejoice already in their deliverance from the end-time ‘wrath’.
10. While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. Cf. Colossians 1:21–22, ‘And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death.’ The hostility and estrangement which require to be removed lie in human beings, not in God; it is he who takes the initiative in good will by providing ‘the redemption which is in Christ Jesus’.
Much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. That is, by his present resurrection life. This statement is expanded below in 6:8–11.
11. Through whom we have now received our reconciliation. Where reconciliation is mentioned in the New Testament, God or Christ is always the reconciler, and human beings are the object (or among the objects) of his reconciling act. God ‘through Christ reconciled us to himself; men and women are accordingly summoned in Christ’s name to ‘be reconciled to God’ (2 Cor. 5:18, 20). The situation may be compared to that of a king proclaiming an amnesty for rebellious subjects, who are urged to accept his gracious pardon while it is extended to them. God’s abhorrence of sin does not make him the enemy of sinners or seek their ill; his desire is for all ‘to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’ (1 Tim. 2:4).19