"Gospel Surety for Salvation":ROMANS 5:1-11
Michael Sundberg: Lay-Catechist: Paramount Church
Context: (Chapters 1 - 4)
Paul has argued that all have sinned and amongst both Jew and Gentile, there is no one good, none righteous, establishing the point that righteousness does not come by our works. He says, “to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” (Rom 4:5) And so with Abraham, Paul says he “believed and it was credited to him as righteousness.” So, he uses David and Abraham as examples of this justification by faith and how God justifies the ungodly. We know from the scriptural witness that these men were sinners who affirmed the blessing of God in the forgiveness of sins (v-7-8).
The apostle goes on to say, “That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his [Abraham’s] offspring…. All those who “shar[e] the faith of Abraham” (v16). Paul stresses the unity from the O.T. of the one way of salvation: by Grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone
Since righteousness is not on the basis of “our” works this means that it is not an inherent but an “alien righteousness;” one that comes from outside of us; not in any way merited by us but by another, namely Christ and “His work,” so that it is entirely of grace and received by faith. Paul has already expressly referred to this in Ch. 3:21 as “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.”
Paul then shifts from this O.T. narrative persuasion to a more personal tone beginning with “Therefore.” In this passage he outlines the grounds and reception of our justification and highlights the immense benefits of it in the present for believers.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. 3And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
What I want to keep in mind as we begin looking at the benefits of justification and peering deeper into the reality of being united to Christ and all His saving benefits is really the “how and why they are secure.” I also want to keep in mind the tapestry weaved by Paul which captures the Trinitarian activity of God in the execution of His saving will and demonstration of His love.
LOOK AT 3 POINTS:
First, The Benefits of Justification are Secure and Unchanging;
Second, the Eternal Love of God is Secure and Unchanging;
Third, The Mediation of Christ in His Saving Office is Secure and Unchanging and see how these truths impact us bringing great comfort and confidence.
I. The benefits of Justification are Secure and Unchanging
Therefore, having been justified by faith,
Through Justification we have the free forgiveness of sins and the imputation of righteousness – the imputed righteousness of Christ, His perfect obedience in both His life and His death completely fulfilling all of the law’s requirements and penalties as our representative and in our place – this righteousness is credited to us.
Tense of the verb in Greek points to the fact that it is a completed action / event that has occurred while maintaining its ongoing effects. [Contrary to the idea that there are stages of justification] Here we see that it is done – we have been justified!
Instrument: through faith alone
We have already credited to our account through faith alone, the perfect righteousness of Christ so that on account of His work in God’s sight in the words of the (H.C. Q.60) “As if I had never had nor committed any sin, and as if I had myself accomplished all the obedience which Christ has fulfilled for me.” That is what is true of us right now and what it means to be righteous in Christ.
We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ
Peace – In the Present (perfect tense “we have,”– current and ongoing state of affairs) and Indicative – true right now of our status.
In reference to our relational status over an “inner subjective feeling.”
Alludes to the truth of our reconciliation.
Dutch Reformed Theologian, Herman Bavinck wrote, “Not only must we be reconciled with God, but God too, must be reconciled with us in the sense that, by giving Christ as expiation, he puts aside his wrath and establishes a relation of peace between himself and human beings…By the sacrifice of Christ, therefore, a relation of reconciliation, of peace, and of nearness has been established between God and humanity…This [reconciliation] is the content of the gospel: everything is done, God is reconciled… People only receive reconciliation as a gift and accept it by faith.”
v2. through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace
In Christ we have access
Speaks of our Union: engrafted into Christ by faith
Calvin summed up so adequately: “As long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us. Therefore, to share with us what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell within us.
In union with Christ, we receive the double benefit of the covenant of grace. In other words we receive a whole Christ for both justification and sanctification; the freedom from sin’s guilt and from sin’s power; they are both the work of God so we are NOT in a covenant by grace and then left to ourselves and to complete it in our own strength or efforts. Our standing is not dependent on us, but solely on the merits of Christ.
The HC states this in Q.21. in its explanation of true faith. To quote a portion: It is “also a deep-rooted assurance, created in me by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel, that not only to others, but to me also, [Note the benefits] forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness and salvation, [HERE IT IS] are freely given by God, merely of grace, for the sake of “Christ’s merits.”
I like the way R. Scott Clark said this: “We do not seek to present ourselves on the basis of our obedience or even on the basis of our Spirit-wrought sanctity but only on the basis of Christ’s perfect righteousness for us." He’s exactly right! It is in His work that we can trust and rest.
We have access by faith into the Grace in which we stand.
Grace is not an impersonal substance – In the person of Christ
[Not our ‘Cooperation with Grace – as emphasized earlier]
We are already in possession and partakers of grace, God’s divine and unmerited favor for us in Christ!
Access and Standing is our Current / perpetual position because we are in Christ and remain near to God through Him (Hebrews 9:24)
Calvin: “[Paul] teaches us by the word access, that salvation begins with Christ…it is through the continuance of the same favour that our salvation becomes certain and sure; by which he intimates, that perseverance is not founded on our power and diligence, but on Christ.”
He is the Mediator, the God-man, and our representative who has appeared in heaven, the most holy place, before the presence of God. With the announcement of the Gospel from which faith follows, uniting us to Christ and all His benefits, in union with Him we have access to the throne of grace, we have nearness to God, our status and position is secure because He has accomplished that perfect redemption for us and is able to make us stand, in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy! (Jude 24).
Paul then shows how, from these truths, we are moved to joy and rejoicing “exult in hope of the glory of God” (v3) and then transitions from the awareness of these gospel blessings with all the wonderful promises that they bring into observing this chain produced from tribulations: {Speaks of}
v3. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope
Hope singled out before (v2 we exult [rejoice] in hope of the glory of God) and after (v4).
Hope is an Anchor for our soul – “sure and steadfast” (Hebrews 6:19)
Benefits are not lost amidst trials of life – They cannot be removed or stripped away
What is evident is that through faith and the reality of our relational status – one of peace and reconciliation under God’s favor, and in union with Christ, tribulations we face do not lead to despair but culminate in and reveal the hope that we have within. The Faith, Peace, Joy, Hope that we already possess can also be considered what we take into the fierce storms of life!
God is the One able to use tribulation to produce the outcome He intends; it is not as though things occur by chance and God fumbles around to reevaluate and make readjustments to our lives (see H.C. Q.27), but in His sovereignty He works His plan and purpose for good and prepares us for the glory that will one day be revealed. There is a deep comfort knowing that God’s saving will for our lives cannot be thwarted nor threatened by adversity but is being firmly enacted even in the midst of tribulation so that with Paul we can give God all the glory! H.C. Q.26 Affirms this: The Father, “will turn to my good whatever adversity He sends me in this life of sorrow. He is able to do so as almighty God, and willing also as a faithful Father.”
How truly blessed it is to have arising from the Gospel a peace, joy, and hope that does not waver though our circumstances change, as we experience the effects of the fall, our own struggle with our sin nature, and the suffering evidenced in our world. What we have in Christ is immovable. “This Cornerstone, this solid Ground, Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.”
The question that we have may all have come to ponder in these past extremely difficult months is: In the hardships and catastrophes of life, where do we go for comfort again and again? – THE GOSPEL and its IMPLICATIONS! which Paul effectively sandwiches here, He begins with gospel benefits and then in view of the tribulations of life outbursts into the hope we have, really the hope of the gospel.
v5. and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts
The love that Paul goes on to expound, in one commentator’s words, “substantiates the utter dependability of our hope.” D.M. – In other words, that love is the basis of our hope, and our hope is grounded in God’s steadfast love.
Anglican Theologian J. Stott expresses it this way: “The reason our hope will never let us down is that God will never let us down. His love will never give us up.”
Paul goes to lengths to reveal to us the depths of that love and how it has both come to historical expression and is revealed in our lives! Moving to the love of God he observes it in a threefold manner: the love of God (the Father,) manifested in the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the work of Christ accomplished in the Gospel! (V 5-8)
II. The Eternal Love of God is Secure and Unchanging
GOD IS LOVE (1 John 4:16): His eternal and immutable loving nature as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is Firm and Steadfast love, coming to expression in His saving will.
Eph. 1:4-5 {Father} “In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself.”
Eternal love emerging in the Covenant of Redemption {Intra-Trinitarian counsel to save sinners}: Jesus speaks of this in John 17:22-24: “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.
Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. {move}
1. MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
Love is manifested through the Holy Spirit who eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son.
St. Augustine, “He is…the love by which the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, ineffably demonstrates the communion of both.” By receiving Him we enjoy fellowship and love with the Father and the Son.
The Holy Spirit who was given to us
Gift to the Church: The Holy Spirit was acquired and sent to us by Christ as the Risen and Ascended Lord, as a fruit of the Gospel; of His accomplished work and Ascension. Paul in Galatians 3:14 calls the reception of the Spirit, the blessing and promise of the Abrahamic Covenant (Where God announced the Gospel beforehand)
The gift of the Holy Spirit is a revelation of God’s love
St. Augustine: “If there be among the gifts of God none greater than love, and there is no greater gift of God than the Holy Spirit what follows more naturally than that He is Himself love.” The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit, poured out at Pentecost on the Church corporately, and from which follows His ministry individually, as Paul identifies here.
J. Stott: “The initial outpouring remains a permanent flood.” He continually fills us with the joy and knowledge of God’s active and abiding love for us!
Through the H.S. we have a Knowledge and Experience of God’s love:
This outpouring is referred to in Scripture as the “Spirit of Adoption.” What He does by His inward witness is assures us and ever brings to our awareness through the truth of the Gospel that God is indeed our Father and of our Father’s unconditional love for us. J. Stott said: “There is little if any appreciable difference between being assured of God’s fatherhood and of his love.” Since God is our Father He endlessly loves us as His adopted children with the greatest love!
But w must remember, this does not imply that the Holy Spirit is working on His own. He is not working apart from Christ or the Father but always in harmony with them! What this signifies in our lives is the working out of in the covenant of grace the redemptive Love of the Father, In the Son, Through the Spirit.
Consider where He directs us. The Gospel is the ministry of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 3:8): J.I. Packer states, He is the “Floodlight” to Christ – Not driving us inward but drawing outside of ourselves and pointing us to Christ. Taking and applying His work (John 16:14), ministering the Gospel through the means of grace in Word and Sacrament, to communicate Christ and His benefits to us, sustaining us in God’s perfect love.
2. OBJECTIVE WORK OF CHRIST
We see this unity, as Paul then moves from this aspect of the Holy Spirit’s ministry to showing how this love is manifested by the objective work of Christ
v6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly
So, there is nothing good in us, nothing in us that moved God to save us… weak and helpless, nothing we could do to save ourselves! On the contrary what we had were our sins and demerits, our rejection of God. Yet it was at the appointed time and all according to the counsel of His will and His wondrous grace!
Christ died for the ungodly
How can a holy God be absolutely Just and look past iniquity? How can He die for, acquit, and justify the ungodly? It is because our sins were completely dealt with when Jesus bore them upon the cross; Not only was Christ’s substitutionary atonement an expiation (i.e., a removal / blotting out of sin’s guilt) but Christ was also our propitiation who swallowed up God’s wrath, taking upon Himself the punishment for our sins which we deserved, paying the debt we owed but could never pay so that we might receive an abundance of mercy and grace.
See Paul’s logic in these next verses reveals the depth of God’s love:
v8. God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
J. Stott explains: “The degree of love is measured partly by the costliness of the gift to the giver, and partly by the worthiness or unworthiness of the beneficiary. The more the gift costs the giver, and the less the recipient deserves it, the greater the love is seen to be. Measured by these standards, God’s love in Christ is absolutely unique. For in sending his Son to die for sinners, he was giving everything, his very self, to those who deserved nothing from him except judgment.”
Christ’s atoning death for sinners displayed and proved that very love by which the Father sent Christ as Surety on our behalf in view of our reconciliation, and whereby our Savior out of great love lived in perfect obedience, laid down His life, died, was buried, and rose again for our justification (Rom. 4:25). What great love! {Brings us to our third and final point}
III. Saving office and Mediation of Christ is Secure and Unchanging
v9. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
Here we see that Christ’s blood is the grounds of our justification
We are saved from wrath already: God is no longer our Judge; in Christ we are freed from condemnation. As Pastor John has taught so clearly, this is because in being declared justified God’s end-time verdict has been rendered in the present because Christ already underwent the judgement for believer’s sins. God is now and evermore our Father, from whom flows every good and perfect gift! This futuristic aspect, “shall be saved” looks forward to the consummation when death, the very last enemy, will be swallowed up in victory. But at that time according to God’s Word, there will also be retribution for all who have opposed and rejected God and the Gospel (1 Cor. 15:26; 2 Thess. 1:8).
But Scripture says in 2 Thess. 1:9 that for believers, “He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed.” Having been justified we can have firm confidence that Christ’s return will mean “the glorification of the Church” and vindication!
Hence, Calvin aptly states: “If, then, we would be assured that God is pleased with and kindly disposed toward us, we must fix our eyes and minds on Christ alone.”
v10. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
We were reconciled while we were “enemies!” {Think of that} That depicts when we were hostile, at enmity with God. Paul lists elsewhere, without God and without hope, aliens and strangers to the covenant of promise, separate from Christ – “dead in our trespasses and sins, living in the lusts of our flesh and by nature children of wrath” – if that was the time and our state when God displayed such unfathomable love in Christ, in observation of all the blessings previously mentioned by Paul:
We could say HOW MUCH MORE now that Paul says, we have “been reconciled” and stand in a relation of peace…now that we are united to Christ by faith with His righteousness, having received the gift of the Holy Spirit, are adopted and beloved of the Father and made members of the Church where Christ WHO IS ALIVE AND LIVES, rules in blessing, administering His Kingship by Word and Spirit. How much more on account of His very life as the Firstfruits do we have the promise of resurrection and eternal life and the assurance that He will secure and bring to completion our entire salvation!
‘How Much More’ is an argument from the Greater to the Lesser / Passage Parallels Romans 8 – Where we can get a clearer idea as Paul develops his train of thought using the same type of argument:
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? 33 Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; 34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? {Carries the same idea that Paul conveyed in Ch. 5:3-5}
The question is answered in v. 38. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Apostle Paul speaks to the reality of Christ’s Mediatorial office. If Christ accomplished this for us in his state of humiliation and lowliness, we are now directed to the fact that He has risen and ascended in our very nature as our representative and head, executing His Saving office as our Prophet, Priest, and King. He is ruling and reigning in the power of His glorious exaltation at the right hand of the Father, at the throne of majesty, where He ever lives and intercedes!
I. The benefits of Justification are Secure and Unchanging
Therefore, having been justified by faith,
Through Justification we have the free forgiveness of sins and the imputation of righteousness – the imputed righteousness of Christ, His perfect obedience in both His life and His death completely fulfilling all of the law’s requirements and penalties as our representative and in our place – this righteousness is credited to us.
Tense of the verb in Greek points to the fact that it is a completed action / event that has occurred while maintaining its ongoing effects. [Contrary to the idea that there are stages of justification] Here we see that it is done – we have been justified!
Instrument: through faith alone
We have already credited to our account through faith alone, the perfect righteousness of Christ so that on account of His work in God’s sight in the words of the (H.C. Q.60) “As if I had never had nor committed any sin, and as if I had myself accomplished all the obedience which Christ has fulfilled for me.” That is what is true of us right now and what it means to be righteous in Christ.
We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ
Peace – In the Present (perfect tense “we have,”– current and ongoing state of affairs) and Indicative – true right now of our status.
In reference to our relational status over an “inner subjective feeling.”
Alludes to the truth of our reconciliation.
Dutch Reformed Theologian, Herman Bavinck wrote, “Not only must we be reconciled with God, but God too, must be reconciled with us in the sense that, by giving Christ as expiation, he puts aside his wrath and establishes a relation of peace between himself and human beings…By the sacrifice of Christ, therefore, a relation of reconciliation, of peace, and of nearness has been established between God and humanity…This [reconciliation] is the content of the gospel: everything is done, God is reconciled… People only receive reconciliation as a gift and accept it by faith.”
v2. through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace
In Christ we have access
Speaks of our Union: engrafted into Christ by faith
Calvin summed up so adequately: “As long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us. Therefore, to share with us what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell within us.
In union with Christ, we receive the double benefit of the covenant of grace. In other words we receive a whole Christ for both justification and sanctification; the freedom from sin’s guilt and from sin’s power; they are both the work of God so we are NOT in a covenant by grace and then left to ourselves and to complete it in our own strength or efforts. Our standing is not dependent on us, but solely on the merits of Christ.
The HC states this in Q.21. in its explanation of true faith. To quote a portion: It is “also a deep-rooted assurance, created in me by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel, that not only to others, but to me also, [Note the benefits] forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness and salvation, [HERE IT IS] are freely given by God, merely of grace, for the sake of “Christ’s merits.”
I like the way R. Scott Clark said this: “We do not seek to present ourselves on the basis of our obedience or even on the basis of our Spirit-wrought sanctity but only on the basis of Christ’s perfect righteousness for us." He’s exactly right! It is in His work that we can trust and rest.
We have access by faith into the Grace in which we stand.
Grace is not an impersonal substance – In the person of Christ
[Not our ‘Cooperation with Grace – as emphasized earlier]
We are already in possession and partakers of grace, God’s divine and unmerited favor for us in Christ!
Access and Standing is our Current / perpetual position because we are in Christ and remain near to God through Him (Hebrews 9:24)
Calvin: “[Paul] teaches us by the word access, that salvation begins with Christ…it is through the continuance of the same favour that our salvation becomes certain and sure; by which he intimates, that perseverance is not founded on our power and diligence, but on Christ.”
He is the Mediator, the God-man, and our representative who has appeared in heaven, the most holy place, before the presence of God. With the announcement of the Gospel from which faith follows, uniting us to Christ and all His benefits, in union with Him we have access to the throne of grace, we have nearness to God, our status and position is secure because He has accomplished that perfect redemption for us and is able to make us stand, in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy! (Jude 24).
Paul then shows how, from these truths, we are moved to joy and rejoicing “exult in hope of the glory of God” (v3) and then transitions from the awareness of these gospel blessings with all the wonderful promises that they bring into observing this chain produced from tribulations: {Speaks of}
v3. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope
Hope singled out before (v2 we exult [rejoice] in hope of the glory of God) and after (v4).
Hope is an Anchor for our soul – “sure and steadfast” (Hebrews 6:19)
Benefits are not lost amidst trials of life – They cannot be removed or stripped away
What is evident is that through faith and the reality of our relational status – one of peace and reconciliation under God’s favor, and in union with Christ, tribulations we face do not lead to despair but culminate in and reveal the hope that we have within. The Faith, Peace, Joy, Hope that we already possess can also be considered what we take into the fierce storms of life!
God is the One able to use tribulation to produce the outcome He intends; it is not as though things occur by chance and God fumbles around to reevaluate and make readjustments to our lives (see H.C. Q.27), but in His sovereignty He works His plan and purpose for good and prepares us for the glory that will one day be revealed. There is a deep comfort knowing that God’s saving will for our lives cannot be thwarted nor threatened by adversity but is being firmly enacted even in the midst of tribulation so that with Paul we can give God all the glory! H.C. Q.26 Affirms this: The Father, “will turn to my good whatever adversity He sends me in this life of sorrow. He is able to do so as almighty God, and willing also as a faithful Father.”
How truly blessed it is to have arising from the Gospel a peace, joy, and hope that does not waver though our circumstances change, as we experience the effects of the fall, our own struggle with our sin nature, and the suffering evidenced in our world. What we have in Christ is immovable. “This Cornerstone, this solid Ground, Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.”
The question that we have may all have come to ponder in these past extremely difficult months is: In the hardships and catastrophes of life, where do we go for comfort again and again? – THE GOSPEL and its IMPLICATIONS! which Paul effectively sandwiches here, He begins with gospel benefits and then in view of the tribulations of life outbursts into the hope we have, really the hope of the gospel.
v5. and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts
The love that Paul goes on to expound, in one commentator’s words, “substantiates the utter dependability of our hope.” D.M. – In other words, that love is the basis of our hope, and our hope is grounded in God’s steadfast love.
Anglican Theologian J. Stott expresses it this way: “The reason our hope will never let us down is that God will never let us down. His love will never give us up.”
Paul goes to lengths to reveal to us the depths of that love and how it has both come to historical expression and is revealed in our lives! Moving to the love of God he observes it in a threefold manner: the love of God (the Father,) manifested in the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the work of Christ accomplished in the Gospel! (V 5-8)
II. The Eternal Love of God is Secure and Unchanging
GOD IS LOVE (1 John 4:16): His eternal and immutable loving nature as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is Firm and Steadfast love, coming to expression in His saving will.
Eph. 1:4-5 {Father} “In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself.”
Eternal love emerging in the Covenant of Redemption {Intra-Trinitarian counsel to save sinners}: Jesus speaks of this in John 17:22-24: “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.
Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. {move}
1. MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
Love is manifested through the Holy Spirit who eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son.
St. Augustine, “He is…the love by which the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, ineffably demonstrates the communion of both.” By receiving Him we enjoy fellowship and love with the Father and the Son.
The Holy Spirit who was given to us
Gift to the Church: The Holy Spirit was acquired and sent to us by Christ as the Risen and Ascended Lord, as a fruit of the Gospel; of His accomplished work and Ascension. Paul in Galatians 3:14 calls the reception of the Spirit, the blessing and promise of the Abrahamic Covenant (Where God announced the Gospel beforehand)
The gift of the Holy Spirit is a revelation of God’s love
St. Augustine: “If there be among the gifts of God none greater than love, and there is no greater gift of God than the Holy Spirit what follows more naturally than that He is Himself love.” The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit, poured out at Pentecost on the Church corporately, and from which follows His ministry individually, as Paul identifies here.
J. Stott: “The initial outpouring remains a permanent flood.” He continually fills us with the joy and knowledge of God’s active and abiding love for us!
Through the H.S. we have a Knowledge and Experience of God’s love:
This outpouring is referred to in Scripture as the “Spirit of Adoption.” What He does by His inward witness is assures us and ever brings to our awareness through the truth of the Gospel that God is indeed our Father and of our Father’s unconditional love for us. J. Stott said: “There is little if any appreciable difference between being assured of God’s fatherhood and of his love.” Since God is our Father He endlessly loves us as His adopted children with the greatest love!
But w must remember, this does not imply that the Holy Spirit is working on His own. He is not working apart from Christ or the Father but always in harmony with them! What this signifies in our lives is the working out of in the covenant of grace the redemptive Love of the Father, In the Son, Through the Spirit.
Consider where He directs us. The Gospel is the ministry of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 3:8): J.I. Packer states, He is the “Floodlight” to Christ – Not driving us inward but drawing outside of ourselves and pointing us to Christ. Taking and applying His work (John 16:14), ministering the Gospel through the means of grace in Word and Sacrament, to communicate Christ and His benefits to us, sustaining us in God’s perfect love.
2. OBJECTIVE WORK OF CHRIST
We see this unity, as Paul then moves from this aspect of the Holy Spirit’s ministry to showing how this love is manifested by the objective work of Christ
v6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly
So, there is nothing good in us, nothing in us that moved God to save us… weak and helpless, nothing we could do to save ourselves! On the contrary what we had were our sins and demerits, our rejection of God. Yet it was at the appointed time and all according to the counsel of His will and His wondrous grace!
Christ died for the ungodly
How can a holy God be absolutely Just and look past iniquity? How can He die for, acquit, and justify the ungodly? It is because our sins were completely dealt with when Jesus bore them upon the cross; Not only was Christ’s substitutionary atonement an expiation (i.e., a removal / blotting out of sin’s guilt) but Christ was also our propitiation who swallowed up God’s wrath, taking upon Himself the punishment for our sins which we deserved, paying the debt we owed but could never pay so that we might receive an abundance of mercy and grace.
See Paul’s logic in these next verses reveals the depth of God’s love:
v8. God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
J. Stott explains: “The degree of love is measured partly by the costliness of the gift to the giver, and partly by the worthiness or unworthiness of the beneficiary. The more the gift costs the giver, and the less the recipient deserves it, the greater the love is seen to be. Measured by these standards, God’s love in Christ is absolutely unique. For in sending his Son to die for sinners, he was giving everything, his very self, to those who deserved nothing from him except judgment.”
Christ’s atoning death for sinners displayed and proved that very love by which the Father sent Christ as Surety on our behalf in view of our reconciliation, and whereby our Savior out of great love lived in perfect obedience, laid down His life, died, was buried, and rose again for our justification (Rom. 4:25). What great love! {Brings us to our third and final point}
III. Saving office and Mediation of Christ is Secure and Unchanging
v9. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
Here we see that Christ’s blood is the grounds of our justification
We are saved from wrath already: God is no longer our Judge; in Christ we are freed from condemnation. As Pastor John has taught so clearly, this is because in being declared justified God’s end-time verdict has been rendered in the present because Christ already underwent the judgement for believer’s sins. God is now and evermore our Father, from whom flows every good and perfect gift! This futuristic aspect, “shall be saved” looks forward to the consummation when death, the very last enemy, will be swallowed up in victory. But at that time according to God’s Word, there will also be retribution for all who have opposed and rejected God and the Gospel (1 Cor. 15:26; 2 Thess. 1:8).
But Scripture says in 2 Thess. 1:9 that for believers, “He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed.” Having been justified we can have firm confidence that Christ’s return will mean “the glorification of the Church” and vindication!
Hence, Calvin aptly states: “If, then, we would be assured that God is pleased with and kindly disposed toward us, we must fix our eyes and minds on Christ alone.”
v10. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
We were reconciled while we were “enemies!” {Think of that} That depicts when we were hostile, at enmity with God. Paul lists elsewhere, without God and without hope, aliens and strangers to the covenant of promise, separate from Christ – “dead in our trespasses and sins, living in the lusts of our flesh and by nature children of wrath” – if that was the time and our state when God displayed such unfathomable love in Christ, in observation of all the blessings previously mentioned by Paul:
We could say HOW MUCH MORE now that Paul says, we have “been reconciled” and stand in a relation of peace…now that we are united to Christ by faith with His righteousness, having received the gift of the Holy Spirit, are adopted and beloved of the Father and made members of the Church where Christ WHO IS ALIVE AND LIVES, rules in blessing, administering His Kingship by Word and Spirit. How much more on account of His very life as the Firstfruits do we have the promise of resurrection and eternal life and the assurance that He will secure and bring to completion our entire salvation!
‘How Much More’ is an argument from the Greater to the Lesser / Passage Parallels Romans 8 – Where we can get a clearer idea as Paul develops his train of thought using the same type of argument:
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? 33 Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; 34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? {Carries the same idea that Paul conveyed in Ch. 5:3-5}
The question is answered in v. 38. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Apostle Paul speaks to the reality of Christ’s Mediatorial office. If Christ accomplished this for us in his state of humiliation and lowliness, we are now directed to the fact that He has risen and ascended in our very nature as our representative and head, executing His Saving office as our Prophet, Priest, and King. He is ruling and reigning in the power of His glorious exaltation at the right hand of the Father, at the throne of majesty, where He ever lives and intercedes!
Ephesians 1: 20-23: [God]…seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” He is alive! From His endless life and uninterrupted intercession is the preservation of our reconciliation and salvation. In the words of C. Olevianus: “As far as the exaltation of Christ into His priesthood is concerned, those who are in covenant with God receive this comfort: They know that the covenant of grace is preserved forever by the intercession of this Mediator.”
Olevianus then outlines the fixed and ongoing nature of the promises granted to us through Christ’s mediation and intercession: “By the one sacrifice of Christ, which retains its efficacy forever, my sins are wiped away—not only until death but forever. God will remember them no more. He also appears forever in heaven before the face of the Father with the very body and soul in which my sins were fully punished and my salvation was obtained. Thus, I may be assured that every hour and moment the Father has before His eyes the guarantee of the once-for-all, eternally valid sacrifice of Christ.”
In Application – What does all this mean for us? I’d like to briefly point out 3 ways it applies.
Assurance
In all of life’s circumstances, we have this surety. Our salvation in Christ is secure. This certainty comes from the faithfulness of our Triune God: in the love and will of the Father, in the redeeming work and intercession of Christ, and in the Gospel ministry of the Holy Spirit.
We see that Christ has fulfilled all righteousness and paid the debt for our sin so that henceforth we are in this relationship where there remains this irrevocable pronouncement that God is satisfied, His wrath is propitiated, our sins are no longer counted against us, we have received freedom and reconciliation. We are forgiven, accepted, and righteous in Christ. These are the indicatives that we receive on account of the Gospel, Christ’s work for us, and that the Holy Spirit uses to bring us an awareness and assurance of God’s eternal love for us!
This gives us great comfort.
Notice how the Heidelberg Catechism expresses our Triune God’s saving work which according to the catechism provides the deepest source of comfort in all of the ups and downs of life.
1. What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and redeemed me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me, that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that all things must work together for my salvation. Wherefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him.
Gratitude for this reconciliation
v11. We also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation
Fueled from the Gospel
Throughout this whole passage what’s been set before us is the initiative and activity of God as the Actor in this unfolding drama, and we are the ones being acted upon as subjects, we are the ones who are receiving the effects of that action, and ultimately from the Gospel, Christ and all of His saving benefits. As a result of the Gospel and the reception of these gifts, the action that Paul demonstrates and drives into his audience resounds in this collective declaration of praise, “we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” in other words on account of the Gospel we are compelled to participation in a life of rejoicing and gratitude for the wonderful works of God!
Wind in our sails
Olevianus then outlines the fixed and ongoing nature of the promises granted to us through Christ’s mediation and intercession: “By the one sacrifice of Christ, which retains its efficacy forever, my sins are wiped away—not only until death but forever. God will remember them no more. He also appears forever in heaven before the face of the Father with the very body and soul in which my sins were fully punished and my salvation was obtained. Thus, I may be assured that every hour and moment the Father has before His eyes the guarantee of the once-for-all, eternally valid sacrifice of Christ.”
In Application – What does all this mean for us? I’d like to briefly point out 3 ways it applies.
Assurance
In all of life’s circumstances, we have this surety. Our salvation in Christ is secure. This certainty comes from the faithfulness of our Triune God: in the love and will of the Father, in the redeeming work and intercession of Christ, and in the Gospel ministry of the Holy Spirit.
We see that Christ has fulfilled all righteousness and paid the debt for our sin so that henceforth we are in this relationship where there remains this irrevocable pronouncement that God is satisfied, His wrath is propitiated, our sins are no longer counted against us, we have received freedom and reconciliation. We are forgiven, accepted, and righteous in Christ. These are the indicatives that we receive on account of the Gospel, Christ’s work for us, and that the Holy Spirit uses to bring us an awareness and assurance of God’s eternal love for us!
This gives us great comfort.
Notice how the Heidelberg Catechism expresses our Triune God’s saving work which according to the catechism provides the deepest source of comfort in all of the ups and downs of life.
1. What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and redeemed me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me, that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that all things must work together for my salvation. Wherefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him.
Gratitude for this reconciliation
v11. We also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation
Fueled from the Gospel
Throughout this whole passage what’s been set before us is the initiative and activity of God as the Actor in this unfolding drama, and we are the ones being acted upon as subjects, we are the ones who are receiving the effects of that action, and ultimately from the Gospel, Christ and all of His saving benefits. As a result of the Gospel and the reception of these gifts, the action that Paul demonstrates and drives into his audience resounds in this collective declaration of praise, “we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” in other words on account of the Gospel we are compelled to participation in a life of rejoicing and gratitude for the wonderful works of God!
Finally, Michael Horton has used an analogy that I love of wind filling a ship’s sail. The Gospel, he explains, is the wind that fills our sails and moves us forward into gratitude when we depart, in the middle of our journey and until we arrive safely. Just as the wind is what propels us forward, by that message of the Gospel we are strengthened, assured, and confirmed in our faith and then empowered in gratitude to go forth praising God, delighting in His will, and loving our neighbor, to the glory of His name!
Listen to the sermon at (minute 31): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h40udXWCMus&ab_channel=ParamountChurch
No comments:
Post a Comment