Transcript - Romans - S2 - E1

Welcome to Series 2 Episode 1. We are now looking at Paul’s teaching about how to live the Christian life - the resources that are at our disposal. This is a wonderful Series to study because you can strengthen your faith, your discipleship, and your understanding of the resources that you have as a Christian to live effectively as a believer.

Recap and Background

In Series 1, which I hope many of you will have followed, Paul explains in great detail what the gospel was, why it was necessary, and the principle and the reality of justification by faith alone. This is a truth that the Church can easily lose sight of. We can be caught up in ritual and tradition, in rules and regulations, and lose sight of the simplicity of what it means to be a Christian. This happened to the Church during the earlier centuries of the Catholic Church in Europe. A man called Martin Luther brought about a movement called the Reformation and in order to do that, he had to recapture this very truth: faith was simple. To be a Christian was essentially very simple, very straightforward, and did not depend on the rules, regulations and traditions of the Church. He started the Reformation which took the Church back to the Bible, back to the gospel and particularly back to the principle of justification by faith. At the end of Series 1, Paul spent time explaining that thoroughly, particularly using the story of Abraham to illustrate how this principle has always been the basis for salvation, even in Old Testament times. Paul ended his statements in Romans 4, with a very short summary of the gospel:

“He, (Jesus), was delivered over to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification.”

Romans 4:25, NIV

That is probably the shortest summary of the gospel in the whole New Testament and often unnoticed - a wonderful short verse. Jesus ‘was delivered over to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification.’ Jesus has done it all. This is the glory and the wonder of the cross. But if you have believed in Jesus, have been through the process of understanding justification by faith, and have become a Christian, what happens next? How do you live your life? That is the question that Paul is going to talk about in considerable detail in these coming chapters, chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8, which form the basis for Series 2. I trust that you will find your faith strengthened by Paul’s teaching in these chapters.

Three Dimensional Christian Life

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we’ve gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.”

Romans 5:1-2, NIV

This is one of the most magnificent statements in the whole of the Bible. It starts with that wonderful word, ‘Therefore’. Paul is referring back to everything he has said before - the gospel and what Jesus has done. Where do we stand now? We have been justified by faith, we have peace with God, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. There are three dimensions to this reality of living as a Christian.

The first is what happened in the past: if you have become a Christian, you are justified by faith. It happened some time ago when we believed. Your past matters; it matters that you know how you became a Christian. For some of us it was a decisive moment. For me, I can remember it very clearly. In 1975, as a teenager I suddenly understood the truth and I trusted and believed God. But for some of you, the process of becoming a Christian is more gradual. Maybe you grew up in a Christian family, maybe you attended church for quite a long period of time until suddenly it all began to fall into place. What you need to know is not necessarily the exact moment but to be sure that the process is complete. For many of us we know the exact moment when we became a Christian but we need to be sure that we trust God wholeheartedly now.

If you are reading this and you are not entirely sure, now is the moment to clarify that. Now is the moment to go back to what I have been teaching in the last few episodes, and what we are teaching here, to take a step of faith, and say, ‘Lord I really trust you; I am not going to trust in myself, religious rules or traditions anymore. I trust wholly in you’.

The first dimension that Paul talks about here is the past; we have been justified. The second dimension is the present. ‘We have peace with God.’ These are very powerful words. Paul explains elsewhere that the natural state of human beings is to be at war with God, fighting against him in our hearts, or as explained in earlier episodes, living independently which is the heart of sin, and what was described as idolatry - putting something else in place of God. We are now at peace with God. That is a very important reality.

During the Second World War my country, the United Kingdom, was at war with various other countries - notably Germany and Japan. Members of my family - my father and others - fought in the British Army against the Germans and the Japanese. There was a state of complete war; there was danger, death and fighting for six years. Then peace came; the war ended. Now I inherit the benefits of that peace; I can go to Germany as I have done many times, and we are living at peace. The German people are at peace with the British and with all the other enemies that Hitler waged war against all those years ago. There is a distinction between war and peace. Some years ago, I visited the Ukraine many times, and in those years Ukraine was at peace with its neighbours, notably Russia. As I speak this message now, Ukraine has been in military conflict with Russia on and off for a number of years. If I go back to those same places, it is a situation of war. We know what war and peace mean to us in human experience. Many of you live in countries that have had civil war, civil unrest, terrorist movements, international conflicts, terribly difficult situations - being at war. Paul uses the same language to describe how we related to God before we came to Christ. When we are outside of Christ, we are actually at war with him. Paul uses this language of peace in a very powerful way. It is not just about emotions and nice feelings; it is about a state of being - we are at peace with God; we have nothing to fear from him. If we live simply by faith, we will please him. That is an amazing thought. Many people in churches find that very hard to believe but that is what Paul is saying, that is what he wants believers to enter into.

Sometimes, we start out in faith but then we step back and we go back into a sense of duty, obligation, fear, and thinking we need to obey lots of rules, regulations, and traditions in order to please God. Paul wants us to break out of that mindset completely. He will explain how we should live the Christian life a little later, when he talks about the work of the Holy Spirit, especially in chapter 8. We are at peace with God. How wonderful!

In the present, Paul says that we have access to God’s grace; we have access to his resources. If you became homeless and some friends take you into their house and say, ‘You can live in our house. Here is a spare room you can use until you can find another home,’ - you have entered into a sphere of grace. They are giving you the grace of their home. They say to you, ‘You can eat our food, wash and sleep in our house and you can use our facilities to rest’. You enter into the grace of another world - somebody else’s house. That is basically what has happened to us; we have entered into the world of God’s grace - all his resources are now available to us because we are at peace with God.

This experience is about what happened to us in the past, how we should think about the present, and what we hope for in the future. In verse 2, he speaks of the‘hope of the glory of God’. This refers to our eternal future. We hope - we believe that when we die, we enter into God’s immediate presence and one day we will have a resurrection body; our physical being will be totally renewed and we will be face to face with God in joyful relationship with him, and with all of redeemed humanity and the angelic hosts permanently, without suffering.

These are the realities that Paul has in mind: the past - when you believed; what we are living in now - the time of grace and peace with God, and the future - hope of glory.

Suffering Today

However, he quickly goes on to give some more detail about our life now because there are hardships along the way and Paul knew that.

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

Romans 5:3-4, NIV

Paul knows that the life of Christians is not easy and you may be in a country or a situation where life is very difficult. You may be in a situation where you face opposition, where there is family conflict about your faith and maybe you have been rejected by your family because of your faith and others oppose it. Maybe poverty is your daily experience or you have suffering from physical illness and ailments, or old age, or disability. Paul has all these things in mind when he speaks about suffering here. Although we have peace with God and we have access to him, we still suffer in this world. Those who suggest that we can avoid suffering in this world, have not closely read what Jesus and Paul taught, particularly in passages like this one. Paul had much suffering: he nearly died many times during his ministry; he suffered shortage of money, beatings and difficult journeys; he was robbed; and imprisoned for two years at one point.

Suffering comes our way but Paul says that we should glory in our sufferings. In other words, see that God can do something, even though we are suffering. This is very hard and difficult for us. But Paul’s point is that God is still sovereign when you are suffering; he still knows what is going on. He can still give you his resources, and the changes he can make within you can be quite amazing. Suffering produces perseverance or endurance, which leads to stronger character, which in turn strengthens our hope for the future. Have you ever met Christians who have been shaped by hardship? They have really suffered in this life, and yet out of them comes this amazing faith, peace, trust in God, and a sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives that they can convey to you, and they are still witnessing for Christ.

Holy Spirit

“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who’s been given to us. You see at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person 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. Since we’ve now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

Romans 5:5-11, NIV

Paul introduces a very important reality into the discussion - the person of the Holy Spirit. He will have a lot more to say about the person of the Holy Spirit as we enter into Romans chapter 8. The Holy Spirit is the dynamic of the Christian life. So as we enter into justification by faith, as we are born anew, spiritually reborn. The Holy Spirit comes to live within us as individuals. The Holy Spirit does not naturally live within human beings until we accept the gospel. The Holy Spirit, according to the Bible in the New Testament, is the third person of the godhead of the Trinity. He is God himself working here on earth. God the Father is in heaven; Jesus the son returned to heaven after he had been raised from the dead and ascended into heaven; but the Holy Spirit was sent into the world, into the life of every single believer. Paul begins to introduce the Holy Spirit into his argument.

God’s Love

God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Paul, from verse six onwards, reflects on the death of Christ. Romans 5: 8 “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The theme here is God’s love. The fact that the gospel is available to you and me is purely down to the love of God. He loved us, he wanted to rescue us and he was willing to create a rescue plan to get us out from under the power of sin which we could not escape through our own strength. God wanted to bring us back into relationship with him. That is the motive for the gospel, “God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son”. Paul echoes that idea here. God’s love is behind everything that Christ does.

Reflections

Romans 5: 1 - 2, I would describe as the third high point in the book of Romans - the third point where Paul reaches a great climax of excitement about what God has done. The first one was in Romans 1: 16 - 17, where he briefly and powerfully outlines the gospel; the second one is in Romans 3: 21 - 26, when he explains the gospel more fully, giving various images of what it means to be saved; and then here we have these wonderful words in Romans 5: 1 - 2, which talk about our new relationship with God - what it means: peace with God, being in the sphere of God’s grace; having hope for the future; having justification by faith. We imagine ourselves perhaps in the book of Romans, as walking along a mountain ridge and we go up and down along the road. Every so often, we reach a high point and we have reached the third high point here, in Romans 5: 1-2. These are very important words that should really excite us.

How we deal with suffering is a very important theme that Paul has introduced here. He knows that the Christian life is not easy. How do you stand firm in your salvation despite difficulties? First of all, let us always base our faith on what the Bible actually says. That is the whole point of this Word Online project. My aim is to bring to those who can understand English, and have access to the resources online or offline, wherever you are in the world, a very straightforward understanding of large parts of the New Testament. That is our goal because my conviction is the Bible is the foundation for everything that we can trust. One of the problems we have is, we don’t know or understand the Bible clearly enough and that makes our faith weak. If you are struggling, one of the best things you can do is focus on Bible truth and particularly on the life of Jesus and on books like Romans, and chapter 5 is a wonderful resource for you.

Also, we need the fellowship of the Church. I hope that you are part of a living church community. You might be in a closed country and the church might meet in the home of a friend down the road; you might be meeting secretly. You might be in an open country where you can meet publicly in small and large church gatherings. Whatever your context, you need the fellowship of other people to strengthen your faith. God has made it that way. We are designed to function in community.

God has given you his Holy Spirit, so every day you can ask the Holy Spirit to come and fill you. Whether we are suffering, facing difficulties, physical pain in the body, relational pressures, opposition to your faith at work, or unanswered questions, ask the Holy Spirit to fill you.

Speak out Bible truths. Romans 5: 1 - 2 are words that you could speak out to define your faith again, for you to benefit. It tells you about your past - you are saved; your present - what God is doing in your life now, and the hope you have in the future. However hard life is, let us learn to trust God and glorify him even when we are suffering. I remember a friend of mine who was a believer, who sadly suffered from cancer in her older years. Her life was cut much shorter than she wanted. She had many plans that were unfulfilled. I remember that, during the two years of her suffering with cancer before she died, she constantly read the Bible, she constantly glorified God. I was with her within 48 hours of her dying, and she was very weak at that point. The last word I remember her saying to me was this:‘Jesus, Jesus’. Even in suffering, she glorified God, and then she entered into eternity.

So thank you for joining with us for this episode. I hope you will join us in the next one where Paul explains more fully how sin came into the world, how its influence spread across all humanity, and how Christ breaks the power of sin once and for all.