Peace With God

Romans 5:1-11

Picture, if you will, an outlaw who has been poaching off of the king’s lands, who has pilfered from his storehouse.  There is certainly no peace between him and the king, and he knows if he gets caught, the punishment will be severe.  But one day the king’s son pays the price for all of the wrongs the outlaw has done, and ushers him into the king’s presence.  The outlaw is an outlaw no longer, and can stand in the presence of the king.  There is now peace between the king and the man.

This is the case of mankind with God.  Because of our sins, and the sin nature we inherited from Adam, we were God’s enemies.  We were at war with Him.  But now, through the Blood that Jesus shed on the cross, all those who have accepted Him as Savior, have peace and fellowship with God (vs. 1 - 2).  We have peace because we have been forgiven, we are assured of our salvation.  This is a restoration of the broken relationship between God and mankind for those who have been born-again.  Because of man’s sin and rebellion we were His enemies, and His righteous anger was hot against us.  But when we are saved and justified, this broken relationship is restored forever.

Now that we have peace with God, some believers may wonder why there are still so many difficulties and problems in their life.  Why, if God loves me and has forgiven me, are their still trials in my life, they ask.  Problems, difficulties, and tribulations are not fun.  Paul assures us here, (vs. 3 - 5) that trials and adversities do not come to us because God dislikes us or no longer loves us.  These tribulations help us grow.  God uses them to help our character to grow to become more like His Son.  He uses these trials in our life to help deepen our trust in Him, and give us a blessed hope in our future.

Finally, one last good thought from the remainder of this Scripture passage, (vs. 6 - 10).  God doesn’t love us or didn’t die for us because of how wonderful or lovely we are, because we aren’t.  As verse 8 says, God showed how much He loves us when He died for us.  And when did He die for us?  When we were all nice and polished and clean?  No.  We were at our worst before we were saved.  He died for us when we were still the worst of sinners.  The Lord will save us no matter how bad of a sinner we are.  There is no requirement that we purge all sin from our lives before getting saved, and there is no way that we possibly could.  God didn’t save us because of what a good person we could try to be, He saved us because of who He is, the God who loved us so much He would die for us, and die for us while we were still worthless sinners.

Verse 11 wraps the passage up by proclaiming how much joy this should bring to our life.  Knowing that He loves us so much, He died for us while we were still sinners.  Because of that, we have peace with God through our faith in Christ.  Also, remember that God is using all that we go through in our life to develop our character.  All of this should indeed bring us joy.