“OH WOW!”
THE BENEFITS OF JUSTIFICATION
I have heard just about enough of Steve Jobs in the weeks since his death. Granted Jobs was a genius of sorts giving us the user-friendly Mac and the amazing iPod and iPhone. His inventions have been the most life-changing of the last several decades. But enough already; the media can’t seem to let him go without another tribute or biographical sketch.
Then this last week I read one more quote from Steve Jobs. According to his sister Mona Simpson, Jobs final words before his October 5th death were these: “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.”
I don’t know what Jobs’ faith consisted of, nor if he was a believer at all. From what I read in news magazines there was no mention of Jesus in his life. So what he saw as he breathed his last is a mystery known only to God. On the one hand he may have had the greatest inspiration for some technological gadget that would change the world. We will never know. On the other hand, I wonder if by God’s grace the Lord showed him what he had been missing all his life. I prefer the latter, that at the moment of death, passing from this life into the next, God revealed the glory of his Son to Jobs and it was marvelous to behold. And all one of the great minds of the 21st century could say was “Oh wow!”
As people who believe in Jesus Christ we do not need to wait till death to marvel at the Lord. We are justified freely by the death of Jesus on the cross. But Judgment Day is coming and we will appear before God. What assurances do we have that our justification will save us on that day? Since our works do not save us but we rest fully on the work of Christ, what proof do we have of our salvation?
Paul’s answer is Romans 5:1-11. Having been justified through faith in Christ, we are then presented with the evidence of God’s favor – these amazing benefits. Our final salvation is future, but our hope is realized in these present realities from God. These are the things that should make us exclaim “Oh wow!”
1. We have peace with God
The first benefit of being justified through faith in Christ is peace with God. Peace can mean a couple of different things. In Greek, the word from which we get the name “Irene” means the absence of hostility. Since sin came into the world we were all born with an unnatural hostility towards God. We resisted him and rebelled against his truths creating in us hostility to God. Likewise, our sin resulted in the wrath of God so that God was hostile to us.
Now that Christ has satisfied the love and justice of God in one event, the cross, that hostility is gone. “…since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…” (5:1). But the absence of hostility is not enough. Being a Jew, I think Paul would have preferred the word “shalom,” a Hebrew word that means more than the absence of hostility; it means having a life that is balanced in all aspects – real peace. Here’s why:
Peace is the result of grace. Through Jesus “we have gained access by faith into this grace” (5:2a). Beyond the absence of hostility there is now an open door to come to God. That’s what we read in the phrase “gained access.” Our relationship with God is not sporadic but continuous, not precarious but secure. Where before our sins separated us from God and made us tremble at his hand of discipline, now we can come and say “Father, I messed up again. Forgive me,” and he does. So you lose your fear of God; he is no longer my judge, now he is my Father. We have a holy fear, not a sinner’s fear, I might add.
We have peace in the face of death. Because we have been justified by faith in Jesus we can now “boast in the hope of the glory of God” (5:2b). It is an amazing blessing to watch believers die who have no fear of death. I have seen this peace and hope in the faces of those near death and it is encouraging beyond words. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. We can face life and death knowing that God has reserved his glory for us who believe. This is the hope of glory: a) We wait for Jesus to come again in all his power and glory; b) we will not only see his glory, we will be changed into his glory; and c) even creation will be liberated from its present decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Death does not scare us; death is but a portal to the paradise of God; therefore, we have peace in the face of death.
We even have peace in the midst of suffering. In fact, we rejoice in our sufferings. Why would we do that? Why would we welcome sufferings? Are we masochists? No, we see in suffering something more than enduring pain and hardship. If we share in Christ’s sufferings we will also share in his glory (8:17). Suffering leads to maturity in the faith. Many have said that they would not trade their suffering for health or trouble-free living because in those tribulations they have come to lean on the Lord and trust him more fully. They recognized that a comfortable life can make a person too comfortable and thus lazy in the faith. I could gladly have done without depression in my life but it has taught me more about the Lord. For that fact, I will rejoice in my suffering. In suffering we have the opportunity to know God’s love more certainly.
Even in the midst of Satan’s attacks we can know this peace. Since we have been justified through faith in Jesus we have peace when Satan makes us suffer spiritually. You have in justification the answer to the attacks of doubt and fear that Satan throws at you. You have the answer to the accusation of your own conscience when you sin. To both we can hold up our hand and say, “I have peace with God. My sins are forgiven. In the name of Jesus, be gone.”
This is the experience of those who have been justified by faith. Is this your experience? It is if you know Jesus. Peace is a great benefit, but there’s more.
2. We have God’s love poured out
The second benefit of being justified through faith in Jesus is the outpouring of his love into our lives. Paul wrote, “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given to us…” (5:5).
Sometimes we pray for renewal (some call it revival) and I wonder if we know what we are really asking for. A primary ministry of the Holy Spirit is found in this verse. “Under the vivid metaphor of a cloudburst on a parched countryside” what the Holy Spirit does is to make us deeply and refreshingly aware that God loves us.[i] What a cool image. We are thirsty for God’s love and the Holy Spirit drenches us the reality of the love God has for us. If we would grasp this love the church would be bulging at the seams because we could not help but go out and tell others about God’s love.
How do we know God loves us that much? There is no better description than what we read in these verses. At one point in my own life, while I was in a valley and doubting God’s love for me, these words were like Martin Luther’s “aha” moment. This is what convinced me of God’s love. “You see at just the right time, where we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (5:6-8).
If someone performs an act of love for you there are four ways to determine the depth of that love:
1) What did that love cost the person? Twice in these verses we read that “Christ died.” There is no greater love, Jesus said, than when someone gives his life for his friends. In the Messenger this week a letter was submitted saying that there are other means of declaring Christ’s death than substitutionary atonement, that Christ represented us instead. But clearly Christ died for our sins; the sins were ours, the death was his. He died as a sin offering, bearing the penalty our sins deserved. This was a costly gift.
2) Did you deserve that act of love? The answer to this is found in the description of our status in these words. Paul used words to describe us like “powerless,” “ungodly,” “sinners” and “enemies” (5:10). Not only that, we would agree that as verse 7 states it is a rare thing to die for a righteous man (someone we respect as moral), and maybe for a good man (someone we love), but Christ died for sinners. Did we deserve this act of love? Certainly not. But what an amazing act of love it was…
3) How great are the benefits of that act of love? If someone sacrifices a great deal for us but the act of sacrifice helps us nothing, we may question the meaning of this love. Love is not just sacrifice – it is making a significant contribution to someone’s life. The greater the gift, the more amazing the love.[ii]
What is the benefit of Christ’s death to us? Relationship with God. In the next portion of scripture we will read how Christ’s death reconciles us to God.
4) How free was the act of love? If someone demands a gift, or if the giver is told to give the gift, the act of love is seen as forced. Jesus freely gave us this gift of his own choosing. He said, “No one takes (my life) from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again…” (John 10:18).
Jesus has loved us in all these ways to a degree that we are overwhelmed by the greatness of this gift. “Amazing love! How can it be that thou my God shouldst die for me?”[iii]
3. We have a new relationship with God
The third benefit of being justified through faith in Jesus is a new relationship with God.
Note in the old NIV version that “rejoice” is used three times in verse 2, 3 and 11, instead of “boast” and “glory.” I think rejoice is the better word here. We rejoice in the hope of God’s glory, we rejoice in our sufferings and now we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ “through whom we have now received reconciliation” (5:11). What the NIV translators are trying to do here is contrast the boasting of the Jews in their possession of God with something believers can truly boast about, our new relationship with God. But the Jews boasted as if God were their exclusive property while we rejoice that we now belong to God. Those two things are quite different. It is not that we possess God but that he possesses us.
This is only possible through Christ’s blood, so we have nothing to boast about. “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” (5:9). Again in the Messenger there was an article about the blood of Jesus. Apparently some brothers at the July convention were debating the relevance of the gory image of Christ’s blood. They said that in today’s culture it simply does not resonate well with people. Will Rose, the writer, disagreed and said the blood is of utmost importance, and I agree. The precious blood of Jesus is the only means by which we can enter into a right relationship with God. Our privileges with the Father were purchased by that blood – how can we dare say it is too gory? It represents the difficulty with which Christ had to redeem us.
And if God has done this difficult thing and died for his enemies, can we not trust him to do the simple thing and finish salvation for his friends? “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (5:10). How cool is that?
When we approach the throne of judgment on the Last Day when God judges the people of the world, he will see us who believed in Jesus Christ and will say “these are my friends. I find nothing wrong with them.” In Christ we have a new relationship of incredible privilege with God.
These are the benefits of justification through faith in Christ. We have peace with God; we have God’s love poured out; and we have a new relationship with God.
Don’t you want to say “Oh wow”? We see dimly now the reasons to rejoice; one day we will see clearly just how great God’s love for us really is. When our eyes grow tired from life’s journey and death stands at the foot of our beds, then will the words escape our lips “oh wow, oh wow, oh wow!” We will see Jesus, the hope of our salvation, and words will fail us. How immense the peace; how deep the love; how wonderful the relationship we will have with God.
As we celebrate the body and the blood in a few minutes consider the “wow” factor of this incredible gift. We belong to the Lord God of heaven and earth…WOW!
AMEN
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