Today, we continue our study of Romans 5 where the Apostle Paul is revealing to us the benefits of our rightness with God. Yesterday, we considered the first result in v.1: Peace with God. Today, we consider the second: access by faith into this grace.
There is nothing like the grace of God. Philip Yancey once said, "Grace is like water, it always runs downhill." God's grace is accessible to anyone willing to humble himself before the Lord. This access is the result of being forgiven and being given the Spirit of God who has awakened our formerly dead spirit to Him.
When mankind chose to reject God and His definition of things, we instantly became dead to God. Sin blocked our ability to access Him and to relate to Him as He originally intended.
This is why in John 3 the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus, "You must be born again." Sin drove the life of God out of us once we decided that God could not be trusted. The amazing thing is that God has always been known to come looking for sdistrustful man. Once we have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as our savior and we invite Him into our lives, God makes alive to Himself. God makes us alive to Himself when we embraced His humility. Just like the Prodigal Son, humility gives us the wherewithal to return to the Father. Most often we access humility through humiliating circumstances. This explains why humility is not in high demand. Not to mention that it most often makes us look weak. No one wants to be humbled or to look weak. Yet, humility is one of the greatest of blessings, because it puts us in the position to be embraced by God.
Thomas Merton once wrote, "A humble man can do great things with an uncommon perfection because he is no longer concerned about incidentals, like his own interests or his own reputation, and therefore he no longer needs to waste his efforts in defending them. For a humble man is not afraid of failure. In fact, he is not afraid of anything, even of himself, since perfect humility implies perfect confidence in the power of God before Whom no other power has any meaning and for Whom there is no such thing as an obstacle. Humility is the surest sign of strength."
Getting back to Romans 5:2 we read, "through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand."
Thomas Merton once wrote, "A humble man can do great things with an uncommon perfection because he is no longer concerned about incidentals, like his own interests or his own reputation, and therefore he no longer needs to waste his efforts in defending them. For a humble man is not afraid of failure. In fact, he is not afraid of anything, even of himself, since perfect humility implies perfect confidence in the power of God before Whom no other power has any meaning and for Whom there is no such thing as an obstacle. Humility is the surest sign of strength."
Getting back to Romans 5:2 we read, "through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand."
Note that word "stand." The grace of God fortifies, secures, and establishes the believer in Christ. I have increasingly notice in my years of being a Christian that my insecurities are what causes me, from a posture of fear, to embrace "the not so wise way." It is the grace of God that does the work that challenges the root of all sin most profoundly. The root of all sin is the suspicion that God is not good. When we can't see that God always has our best at heart, it is then that we wander off from Him. His grace always calls us back to Himself. And, once He has, He calls us to lose control of our lives. The way of God's grace frees us from the way of self and death.
Through His grace God wants to grip us. We are hesitant to be gripped by anything, including a story and especially the author of a story. We are always skeptical of stories that are too good to be true. But, we are constantly drawn to such stories. We want to believe that Frodo will do in evil as he hurls the wicked ring into the flames of the abyss. And, if God's grace grips us, we will not only be attracted to such stories, we will take on the leading role in such a story. There has always been something within us that makes us to want to grip back.
The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is a real story. The Lord Jesus is not just some made up character in a storybook. Time as we know it proves that He was a real historical figure. And, His story highlights the fact that grace defeated sin and death. It can also defeat our suspicions and win our allegiance for the author of the story so that we allow ourselves to be gripped by Him. Once His grace grips us and we grip back, we are enabled to live a life free of the entanglements of insecurity and fear.
The last sentence in today's passage reads, "And we boast in the hope of the glory of God."
A better translation of that word "hope" is "a happy certainty." The Christian's salvation is anchored in the past because the Lord Jesus made peace with God on our behalf. Our salvation is anchored in the present because we have access to God continually. And now, our salvation is anchored in the future because we have a promise from God that all of this will lead us to heaven. God's hope is a ringing certainty, based upon the words of the Lord Jesus Himself. In John 14:19 we read, "Because I live, you shall live also." That is the certain hope of everyone who has been justified by faith. The hope of the Christian is in the glory of God.
The apostle Paul also wrote, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. Our hope goes beyond today."
The day the Lord Jesus died, the hope of the disciples died with Him. But, only for a few hours because on that third day the Lord Jesus rose from the dead. When the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, hope went ballistic. In fact, later Peter wrote that he had a living hope because of the resurrection. This kind of hope never dies because the Lord Jesus overcame sin and death once and for all.
