Dr. Sproul picks back up on the theme of our spiritual warfare and then discusses what we are to boast in. Paul sets out in this section of Scripture a series of items that lead sequentially from one to the other, from tribulation to perseverance to character and hope. This leads us to not be ashamed because of the love of God poured out in our hearts.

The church is called by various names in the New Testament, but none is more glorious than the church as the “communion of saints.” When the pressures of the secular culture detract us from significant things such as the kingdom of God, the real saints show up in church. I am delighted to be part of that communion.

We will continue now with our study of Paul’s letter to the Romans, and I will be reading this evening from Romans 5:1–5. I ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God:

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

The Word of God for the people of God. Praise be to God. Please be seated. Let us pray.

Father, this evening as we contemplate together the fruits or the results of our justification in Christ, we pray that we may think deeply about these consequences, that we might never take them for granted, that they may be the occasion in our lives of daily, profound, sustained gratitude. We ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Stickball Ruined for a Good Reason

Last week, I touched lightly on the first verse of Romans 5 when I pointed out that it begins with the term “therefore,” indicating a conclusion that follows from what preceded it—namely, Paul’s laying out for us in great detail and depth the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Sometimes when we look at concepts or doctrines such as these we shrug and say, “So what?”

Here is the “so what” set forth for us in the conclusion of Paul’s treatment when he says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith . . .” Again, our justification is a fait accompli. It is something that has already taken place the moment that we believe, not something that we must wait for purgatory to accomplish.

“Therefore, having been justified by faith,” the first consequence of that is, Paul declares, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” I want to spend some time looking at this first fruit of justification, that we have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me tell you of an account I had in my early childhood. I was six years old at the time, and my family was living temporarily in an apartment in Chicago. On that summer afternoon, I was playing stickball on the street in front of our apartment, and I remember it as though it were yesterday because it was my turn at bat. Home plate was a manhole cover in the middle of the street.

I was delighted to be up, as it were, until my turn at bat was rudely interrupted by a spontaneous outcry of great noise and carryings on that completely amazed me. I saw people running out of buildings, ladies with aprons carrying pots and pans and pounding on them with wooden spoons. They were screaming and yelling in unrestrained jubilation. I had no idea what was going on except for the fact that my stickball game had just been ruined.

I was not happy with what was going on until my mother was numbered among the women who had come out of the apartment building. She came rushing up to me with tears streaming down her eyes, crying out loud: “It’s over! It’s over!” She grabbed me and hugged me as we were experiencing together the joy of V-J Day and the end of World War II. That meant, in our home, that my father’s tenure in the service was over, and he would be restored to our family. Even as a six-year-old child, I knew some great joy from that experience.

Fragile Peace

Let me fast forward a few years. Several of my buddies in our hometown outside of Pittsburgh were going to sleep outside one summer evening. We pitched a tent, roasted marshmallows, and all that sort of thing. Then we went into the tent, and one of the fellas began to talk about the atomic bomb, about the things that were going on in Berlin, and the conflict of the great powers of the world.

He began to describe what would happen if the bomb fell in our community, and I remember being so terrified that I felt sick to my stomach. I fled the sanctuary of that tent, went home, and knocked on the front door that night. My mother was surprised to see me, thinking that I was going to spend the evening with my friends. I told her that I was so scared I had to come home. You see, when we have peace in this world, we may rejoice for a season, but peace is something that never lasts.

One of the most infamous photographs coming out of the early days of the Great War was that of Neville Chamberlain when he was prime minister of England. After he had negotiated a certain peace arrangement with Hitler, I believe in Munich, he had his photograph taken leaning out of a balcony and holding his umbrella. He uttered the words, “We have achieved peace in our time.” While he was uttering those words, Hitler was mobilizing the blitzkrieg into Eastern Europe.

Peace in this world is fragile. It quickly gives way to new hostilities. Those of us who remember World War II remember the many years of the Cold War that followed it, the conflict in Korea, and then the tremendous war that broke out in Vietnam. It seems like our nation is engaged in some kind of war at almost all times. Even when we make peace and have a truce where the hostilities end, very soon thereafter people will begin to rattle the sword, and we never know when the next conflagration will break out.

A War of Cosmic Proportions

When we come to Romans 5, we must understand the strong contrast between the peace that we experience in conflict in this world and the peace about which Paul writes to the Romans. Here he talks about the end of the worst of all possible wars.

I mentioned last week that I spoke on this subject to some wealthy women many years ago. They were extremely bored because they saw no great joy in any announcement of peace with God. They did not even know there was a war on. That is the basic mentality of secular people in our culture today. If you talk to them about war with God, they say, “What war?” They do not realize that at this very moment, the vast majority of humanity is engaged in a war of cosmic proportions.

Here are the enemies: God and people. The New Testament repeatedly describes the natural condition of fallen people as a condition of enmity, that by nature we regard God as our enemy.

Few people will own up to that. They feign indifference about all things religious, yet the heart of man is described as being recalcitrant, reified, hardened to the point that it no longer throbs, beats, or pulsates with any spiritual life whatsoever. The Scriptures tell us that in our natural condition we do not want to have God in our thinking and by nature we are at enmity with God.

I once addressed a group of college students on a university campus at a club called the “Atheist Club.” I was asked to address them. I told them at the end of the address that their problem was not that they did not know that God exists, as we pointed out in Romans 1, but their problem was that they hated the God whom they know exists. You can imagine that I needed safe passage to get out of that meeting because of the hostility of that group—a group full of people who denied up and down that they had any hostility at all toward their Maker. Yet this is what the Scripture says of all of us in our natural state. That is why the central motif of the gospel in the New Testament is reconciliation.

What is a necessary condition for reconciliation to take place? You might say that people have to get together and talk things through, or we have to have a certain list of objectives that we manage in dealing with our differences. Those things may be true, but the most important, necessary ingredient for reconciliation to take place is estrangement. Where there is no estrangement, there is no need for reconciliation.

Why does the New Testament repeatedly describe the ministry of Jesus as a work of mediation? It is because the God-man comes into a world that, in its hostility toward God, is estranged from God. The work of Christ, then, is to be the Mediator who brings these estranged parties together. He is the Prince of Peace who brings about the end of the warfare between God and man, a warfare that is quite real.

God at War with Us

If we look at all the biblical texts that speak about our estrangement, we can understand that we are indeed children of wrath. But it would seem that the only antagonist in this conflict between God and man is us. Surely, God is a God of love. He is a God of patience, a God of mercy. He is longsuffering. He is slow to anger. Certainly, He does not regard us as enemies, does He?

You see, it is not that we are just at war with God; God is also at war with us. The imagery in the Old Testament is the soldier whose bow is bent. He is the One whose chariots come to trample out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.

The book of Romans began with Paul giving a lengthy exposition in the first chapter of the reality of God’s wrath, which is directed against sinful people who refuse to honor Him as God, who refuse to manifest gratitude to Him, and whose basic penchant is to exchange the truth of God for a lie and engage in idolatry by serving and worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. When God looks at our idolatry, He is not at peace with us. He is at war with us.

We tend to become so hardened in our hearts and so stiff in our necks that we become at ease in Zion and think, “Surely, God could not be at war with us*.*” This is the legacy of nineteenth-century liberal theology that captured the church in Europe and then was exported to the United States. Most of us have been born and raised in a country that tells us every day that we are all God’s children, and that God is a God of love who has no capacity for wrath or judgment.

That so-called “God” you daily hear of in the marketplace is an idol who simply does not exist. But the God who is—He is a holy God, so holy that He cannot bear to look at iniquity. There is a basic revulsion in the very character of God for those of us who are engaged in cosmic treason every day of our lives. We need reconciliation. We need the end to that estrangement.

Peace Declared for Us

The good news of the gospel brings reconciliation and the end of estrangement. It is the good news that publishes peace and the good news that says the war is over. Being justified, we have peace with God.

God has taken the initiative to bring about that peace. We did not surrender and sue for peace. Rather, God has conquered us and in His gracious mercy enabled us to be reconciled to Him through the work of His Son. He has said, “If you embrace My Son and put your trust in Him, then all the implements of war at My divine disposal I will set aside, and I will not just set those tools of war aside for a season.” When God enters into a peace treaty with His people, it is a permanent peace, an eternal peace. He will never rattle the sword against you again. He may be displeased with you. He may be grieved by you. But once we have peace with God through the work of Jesus Christ, that peace is ours forever.

When Jesus was about to go to His death, He gathered His frightened disciples in the upper room on the night they celebrated the Lord’s Supper and gave to them His last will and testament. He could have said: “My home in Capernaum I leave to Peter. To you, Matthew, I leave My writing implements so you can be accurate when you assess the taxes for the people. Thomas, I leave you assurance to get over your doubting. I know the soldiers are going to want My robe, but I will give it in My will and testament to you, Nathaneal.” But that is not what Jesus said. He did not have any worldly goods to give, to bequeath to His friends. What was His legacy? He said to His disciples: “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled” (John 14:27).

It is this peace with God that settles the soul, that gives us the assurance of our forgiveness. In the Old Testament, we heard the decree to Jerusalem:

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins. (Isa. 40:1–2)

That is the gospel in advance. Once we are justified, the Holy Spirit testifies to us saying: “Comfort ye. Comfort ye, My people. Speak tenderly to My people. Tell her that the war is over and peace has been declared.”

My conscience is not always at peace. I sin, and when I sin, my conscience is troubled. I am sure you experience the same thing. Sometimes we tend to look over our shoulder to see if God has bent the bow again and pointed it at us. But He does not. When He looks at us, He sees us covered by the righteousness of Christ. We have the peace of Christ. Christ is our peace. For us, there is no more war with God. What a tremendous thing. But that is only the first benefit that Paul mentions in this text.

Access to God

The second benefit is another one that we should never take lightly: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Let me comment on that. The peace comes through our peace agent—the Peacemaker, the Prince of Peace—who is the medium or the means through which this peace is given to us. Then Paul goes on to say, “through whom”—that is, through Christ—“also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

We have access to the Father. Do you know what that would have meant to a God-fearing and devout Jew of the Old Testament? Look back at the whole scope of redemptive history, go back to the dawn of creation, when God created human beings in His own image, created them but a little lower than the angels, gave them dominion over the whole world, and yet the best thing that Adam and Eve experienced was unlimited access to God. Adam and Eve’s greatest delight was when God walked in the cool of the garden with them. They rushed to commune with Him, until that communion was totally ruined by the first transgression. Then, instead of rushing to their Creator when He entered the garden, they fled from His presence, headed for the trees, and hid themselves because they were now aware of their nakedness and were overcome with a sense of shame.

I pointed out when we looked at imputation that the very first work of redemption God accomplished was when He made clothes for His embarrassed creatures, covering their nakedness and their shame. Why? So they could be comfortable in His presence. If your sin is not covered, if your shame has not been removed, there is no way you can ever be anything but a fugitive. You can never be comfortable in God’s presence.

But despite God’s unbelievable work of condescension, of mercy and grace, still there were penalties that had to be paid. God had said, “The day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17). They did suffer spiritual death, but He was telling them about thanatos, physical death. God postponed that judgment and let His creatures live covered in His presence but with no further access to the garden of Eden. They were expelled. They were removed. They were driven out of Paradise and into the darkness.

Government Force

Not only were Adam and Eve sent into the darkness, but a “No Trespassing” sign, as it were, was posted at the entrance to Paradise. For the first time, we read of earthly government being established. The very essence of government in this world is legal force.

Some years ago, when the Vietnam War was raging and the country was divided sharply in her views about that particular conflict, I was in Washington. I was invited to the Senate lunch room to have a meal with a senator whose name you would recognize because he was so vocal in his opposition to the Vietnam War, and he was a pacifist. We were having lunch together, and he called me his rabbi. He said to me, “Rabbi, how do you feel about this war we’re engaged in?”

I mentioned a few things. He said, “I don’t believe that any government has the right to force its people to do anything they don’t want to do.” I said: “That’s an interesting concept. That’s the first time I’ve heard that, Senator. What you’ve just said to me, if I understand you, is that no government has the right to govern, because no government rules by suggestions or recommendations. They enact laws, and when governments enact laws, with those laws come agencies of law enforcement that are authorized to force us to obey or suffer the consequences.”

The senator had never thought about that. I could not believe that man could be a senator in the United States of America and never realize the very essence of government. Government is legalized force. In the thirteenth chapter of Romans, we will see where Paul speaks of God’s giving the power of the sword to the civil magistrate, to earthly governments.

Where is the first appearance in sacred Scripture of the power of the sword? It is with the sentry, the sentinel that God placed at the entrance to the garden of Eden. God put an angel by the garden with a flaming sword. The purpose of that sword is not to rattle it in case something goes wrong, but to use it as an instrument of coercion so that no creature tainted by sin and defiance against God could ever enter that place again. We have no access to the garden of Eden.

No Access

The loss of access is one of the greatest losses that human beings have ever incurred. The significance of that loss is reiterated again and again through the Old Testament Scriptures. You might remember the critical moment in the history of Israel when God summoned Moses to Sinai to come up on the mountain and receive the law by which God would constitute the Israelites as a nation, His people.

Before Moses could go on the mountain, God issued an edict to the people saying that no one among them, except Moses, was allowed to even come close to Mount Sinai. The people had to go through days of cleansing and purification to even witness from afar that mountain shaking with thunder, volcanic eruption, earthquake, lightning, and the cloud in which God appeared. The penalty was that if anyone put one finger or foot on that holy mountain, they would be executed. Why? Because God was there, and a “No Access” sign, as it were, was posted at the base of the mountain.

Even in the deepest moments of the intimate life of the Jewish community in worship, where God comforted His people by saying that wherever they moved as a nomadic people, they would take the tent of meeting with them, and wherever they stopped, they were to pitch the tent. The directions for the establishment of the tabernacle were that whenever the tribes of Israel encamped, they were to encamp in a circle according to the tribes, so that at the very center of that circle would be the tabernacle.

The point of the circle was to ensure that no one tribe had greater access to the presence of God than any other tribe. The glory of the people of Israel was in the tabernacle because it manifested the presence of God. They said, “We will not be moved because God is in the midst of us.” Was He not? In this gracious condescension, God said, “I will dwell with My people.” But even in that grace, there was a limit.

In the center of the camp was the tabernacle. In the center core of the tabernacle was the santus sanctorum, the Holy of Holies. Contained in the Holy of Holies was the mercy seat, the throne of God. In that chest were copies of the Decalogue, some of the manna from the wilderness, and Aaron’s rod that had blossomed. It was on top of the mercy seat, the kapporeth, where the blood of the offering was sprinkled on the Day of Atonement.

Of the whole nation of Israel, only one person was ever allowed inside the Holy of Holies. People could be in the Holy Place or in the outer court, but they could only come so close to God; this far and no further. Only one person could enter and only once a year: the high priest. Even the high priest could only go in the Holy of Holies after going through elaborate oblations and rites of purification. He entered the Holy of Holies in a spirit of fear and trembling.

One tradition—and we do not know that it is accurate—says that the great high priest would have a rope tied around one of his legs, and there were bells on his cassock so that if he had a heart attack and fell over, the bells would ring. If he was in there too long, he could be dragged out by the rope, because no one else was allowed to go in the Holy of Holies, even to save the high priest’s life. Do you see the picture over and over again? There was no access.

The Veil Torn

To make certain that there was no access to the Holy of Holies, one of the most intricate things designed and installed in the tabernacle was the curtain or the veil of the tabernacle, later the veil of the temple that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies. It was made of thick drapes that could not be broken.

Nothing could break through the barrier that separated the people from the immediate presence of God—until Golgotha. Nothing could break that barrier until that afternoon in Jerusalem when the sun was blotted out of the sky in the middle of the day, and it became pitch black, even as night. As Christ was the curse on the cross, there was an earthquake, and in that earthquake, Matthew tells us, the veil of the temple was torn asunder.

Why the earthquake? I heard a missionary say, “When I read that, it was like God the Father in the midst of the death of His Son took the earth in His hands and shook it for what they had done to His Son.” In that earthquake, the wall of partition came crashing down by the work of the Mediator, by the work of the Savior. Then when He rose from the dead, He entered into the heavenly sanctuary, to the heavenly Holy of Holies, where He gives us access to God.

When we come together for worship on Sunday morning, as the author of Hebrews tells us, we no longer come to the mountain that was shaking and hidden in clouds and thunder and lightning that no one could touch. Every time we come into worship, we come into the heavenly sanctuary in the presence of Christ, in the presence of angels, archangels, and spirits of just men made perfect—the general assembly on high—to the presence of God. We have access to His presence. There is no more veil. The angel’s sword of flame has been doused with the blood of Christ, and God welcomes us into His presence. There is no greater human experience in all the world than to have an overwhelming sense of being in the presence of God.

The greatest of Christians testify that in their lifetimes, the times they can recall an acute sense of being in the presence of God can be numbered on one hand. But if you’ve ever tasted it, you’ve had a taste of heaven. You’ve had a taste of the presence of divine glory that Christ has opened up for us.

Our justification is not just about forgiveness. It is not just about the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. It is not just about escaping the judgment of divine wrath, though it includes all those things. But in our justification, we have peace, peace that passes all human understanding. Where once we were barred from admittance into the immediate presence of God, we are now called to enter into His presence boldly.

There is a difference between boldness and arrogance. We are never called to enter into the presence of God arrogantly. It never ceases to amaze me how people speak so flippantly and in such terms of familiarity about their relationship to Christ or to God, as if God is their pal, as if Christ is their peer. I want to say, “Stop that!” If Jesus Christ walked into one of our worship services, everyone would be on his or her face in a posture of submission and adoration, being overwhelmed by His glory.

The Anchor of Hope

Paul continues, “We have access by faith into this grace.” Faith and grace are inseparably related. This is the most unmerited favor that any creature, any sinner could ever experience: the grace of being allowed into the presence of God.

Think about it. How would you feel if you got a written invitation for a personal audience with God? What would you wear? How would you feel? What would you say? But you see, that engraved invitation comes to all who are justified. It is the fruit of our justification. That is the grace “in which we stand” in Christ Jesus and in which we “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

I am going to comment on that briefly. We will expand on it further, God willing, next week. But it talks about the third aspect, the hope of the glory of God. Paul tells us that the three virtues, the triad of Christian virtues, are faith, hope, and charity, and the greatest of these is charity, or love.

But the New Testament again and again speaks of this concept of hope. That word “hope,” or elpis in the Greek, is one of the richest terms we find anywhere in the New Testament. It is the gift that God gives to every person who is justified by faith. That hope radically differs from our normal human understanding of the word hope.

People have been asking me all week, “Do you think the Steelers are going to win tonight?” I say to them: “I don’t know. I’m not a prophet nor the son of a prophet. I hope so.” When I say, “I hope,” I am expressing my desire that certain things will come to pass. I sort of hold my breath and, like in Tiny Alice, cross my fingers and say, “I hope, I hope, I hope.” But I certainly have no assurance that what I hope for will come to pass.

It is not so with the biblical concept of hope. The Bible describes hope using the metaphor of the anchor of our souls. Our souls are not tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. We have stability in our lives because in the midst of the tempest, there is an anchor, and that anchor is the hope that God the Holy Ghost has spread and shed abroad in our hearts. It is a hope that cannot possibly be ashamed, as we will look at next time. It is a hope that carries with it God’s assurance, a hope that cannot fail. In one sense, our faith looks backwards, and we put our trust in what Christ has done for us. Our hope looks forward with the same assurance to what He will do when He completes His work of redemption in us, a work that cannot fail.

Paul tells us that these three things are the fruit of our justification: peace with God, access to His presence, and the hope of His glory that is shed abroad in our hearts. Let us pray.

Father, how we thank You for these things that we cannot begin to grasp in all their magnificence. When we think of even these three benefits of our justification, our hearts can scarcely take it in. Thank You for that peace that cannot be destroyed. Thank You for the access by which we can come into Your presence now. Thank You for the hope that carries our souls. We ask these things and pray for these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.