Romans 5 speaks about the outworking or experience of being justified by faith. It is a wonderfully practical and encouraging chapter.
In Rom.5:1 we found the first result of our justification- Peace with God. Being justified we are at peace with God. More importantly, God is at peace with us.
In Rom.5:2 we come to the second and third aspects of our experience of justification:
(i)
“Through Him we have also obtained access
by faith (see
also 5:1) into this grace in which we stand…”. The key concepts here are ‘access into God’s presence’ and ‘into this grace in which we stand’.
(ii)
“…
and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God!” Here, we will
consider what is this the nature of the hope of the glory of God.
I. Access into God’s presence … and into this Grace
You cannot invite yourself into the presence of the president of your country. Protocol is needed. You need to be invited into his presence. Let us bring that idea to our text. Before you became a Christian, you were "dead in your sins and trespasses" (Eph.2:1).
You were an enemy of God (Rom. 5:10).
You had no peace with God.
Therefore you had no right of entry, no access into the holy presence of God. But now, “having been justified … through our Lord Jesus Christ”, you have access into God’s presence.
Let us think about how that is possible.
Many people think that they are somehow worthy and entitled to come into God’s presence, into His heaven. Jesus says that this is not possible. Nobody can come to the Father on their own terms (John 14:6). We come into God’s presence alone because Jesus Christ has purchased this access for us.
Here is a small illustration: No one gets into a cinema or the theatre without purchasing a ticket. BIG POINT: No one gets to heaven apart from the price that Jesus pays for our sin.
b. Into this Grace in which we stand. We have seen that we receive access to God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus by His shed blood, applied personally to us, without our merit – but by His grace alone, presents us to the Father ("These are the people you have given me out of the world" – John 17), and we receive a gracious response from God the Father.
The book of Esther provides us with a lovely illustration. In Esther 4 the Jewish people who are at this time in exile in Persia, are in a real dilemma. A Persian official named Haman incites a plot against the Jews. If this plot works every Jew in the Persian empire will die. Esther, a Jewish woman, who by God’s providence has become queen of Persia for a time such as this (Esther 4:14) has the only opportunity left to rescue her people. But there is one huge problem! No-one has access to the Persian king without being invited – not even the queen. In fact, there is one law that applies to such trespassers – they must be put to death (Esther 4:11). There is only one possibility of escape. If the king chooses to hold out his golden scepter towards that trespasser, then only they may live (Esther 4: 11). With this in mind Esther dares to approach the king. We read that “she won favour in his sight , and he held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand.” (Esther 5:2). The strict law of the Medes and Persians is set aside, when the king extends the scepter – and Esther received grace to stand before him, and in addition she also received his favour.
This is an illustration of how it is with us and the great King of the Universe.
As unredeemed sinners we could never stand in His presence.
There can only be one sentence for sinners – send this person away into that place where there be weeping and gnashing of teeth (e.g. Lk.13:28). But when Christ extends His scepter to us, by His grace and favour alone, we have access into this grace in which we stand before God.
We stand before God in an entirely new manner. God now delights in us, because He delights in His Son. All that belong to His beloved Son, are also loved by the Father.
An Illustration: We as earthly fathers and mothers must demonstrate that same grace to our sons and daughters- in- law, when they come along. Why do we love them? We love them because they love our sons and daughters. We love them and accept them, because they are loved and accepted by our sons and daughters. This is how God re-acts to us: We are loved on account of His beloved Son, who gave His life as a ransom. Our whole relationship with God is now different.
Illustration: Imagine a man who lives rough on the street, just outside the great palace of a king. Inside the palace is everything that the mind imagines and the heart desires.
But our man on the street cannot go inside. He has no right to enter. He is clothed in rags. But suddenly, someone comes to him on the street and says, “I want to take you into that palace. I will introduce you to the king. I will enable you … I will give you appropriate clothes to enter … which is exactly what Christ did for us. He took our filthy rags and He clothed us with His righteousness, and now we are fit for meeting our God in his kingly throne-room. And He will not chase us away. In Christ He has extended his royal scepter to us.
But He does not only accept us. This grace in which we now stand goes much further. His grace continues to be our portion as we live this life in daily dependence on Him. Listen to this beautiful promise in 2 Peter 1:3,4:
3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
This grace in which we now stand applies to all areas of our lives: our marriages, our children, our relationships, our work, our church… everything! And, it is indeed a sufficient grace (2 Cor 12:9)… whatever our present circumstances may be.
(i) Peace with God (ii) access into Gods presence (iii) We now come to the third great experience following our justification : “… and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God!” (5:2b) The word translated here as ‘rejoice’[2] is perhaps better translated as ‘boast‘ or ‘glory in’ (so also in 5:3,11)
What is it that be will rejoice/ glory/ boast in? Answer: “the hope of the glory of God“. Here we will consider two aspects
(i)
Looking
forward to see the glory of God
(ii)
Looking
forward to the glorification of our own bodies
Since we are now at peace with God, and since we now have access to God by faith into this grace in which we stand, the next thing that awaits us is that we will actually see the glory of God - God!
We begin with a few observation on the
manifestations of God’s glory in the Bible:
The glory of God in the OT
was usually seen in “theophanies“
- i.e. in unusual appearances of God,
usually bright light or fire or
through angelic appearances. The effects of seeing the glory of God were inevitably
associated with fear and awe. Very
few people actually saw the glory of God
as often as Moses did. No nation saw manifestations of God’s glory more than
the Israelites who wandered in the
desert for 40 years.
The glory of God in the NT is firstly seen in the
angelic appearances prior to the births of John the Baptist and Jesus. Secondly, the glory of God was seen in Jesus’ own
ministry, particularly at His
baptism (Matt. 3:16-17) and at the transfiguration (Matt.
17:1-13 only Peter, James and
John saw this). The apostle Peter never
forgot that, and recalls this event
in 2 Peter 1:17,18.
The manifestations of Christ’s glory were also
seen by Stephen in Acts 7:55 when
he was stoned: “being filled with the Holy Spirit, looked up to
heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God…”.
Paul
was
overwhelmed by the glory of Christ on the Damascus road (Acts 9:3). He was converted at this time. Later in 2
Cor, 12:1-10, Paul recalls a remarkable experience in which he
‘was caught up to the third heaven...caught up to paradise… hearing
inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell… surpassingly
great (glorious) revelations…”
The glorious appearances of God in the
OT and NT were certainly not normative.
People normally saw and experienced Christ
as He lived in the days of his ‘humiliation’ in the form of a servant (Phil 2:1-11). The Pharisees could not
‘see’ Him. His disciples could not ‘see’ Him. They only ‘saw’ Him when
He opened their spiritual understanding.
In order for us to see Him now is by
faith (see Rom. 5:1,2). But the goal is that we will one day in all
His glory.
This is certainly Jesus desire as He
expressed it in His high priestly prayer
in Jn 17:24: “Father, I want
those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory,
the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the
world.
Our future hope is “the hope of the glory of God“! Do you remember the words of the Lord Jesus in Matt. 5:8- “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God?”
This is what rejoice in - not only that we are justified; not only that we are at peace with God – but also that we shall one day see the glory of God!
That is our goal and your destiny!
Knowing then that it is impossible for us to see the glory of God in this state of our fallen-ness (for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God –Rom. 3:23), how then shall we be able to see Him and not die?
ANSWER: We need to be in possession of a glorified
body !
The ultimate end to which God justifies
us is that He
might glorify us!
Remember that you cannot enter into the
presence of God in your present state.
Something else must happen to make that possible: This is our bodily glorification which is the last link in the
chain of our salvation – see Romans
8:18 and 30.
Paul says an amazing thing to the Philippian Christians,
“…our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious bod. (Phil.3:20-21)
· see also 1 Cor. 15:42-44; 50ff.
· 1 John 3:2 : “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. “
When we speak about the hope of the glory of God we must think of two things :
1. That we will see God, and
2. That we must be changed in order to see God.
Romans 5:1&2 contains precious truths. Take these sweets and meditate on them; savour them. (i) Peace with God (ii) Access to God (iii) The hope of the glory of God
May every encouragement be yours in Christ now and always!
Next
time we will consider the next benefit of being justified - the ability to be a joyful Christians even when we suffer (Rom. 5:3-5).
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