Romans 5:1–11
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person - though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die - 8 but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Can a sinful human being be justified? Romans 3:24 says that we “are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
So the short answer to the question is yes, we can be justified, but just what is justification by faith, and how does it work? Job 9:2 asks, “How can a man be in the right before God?”
The doctrine of justification is at the heart of the Gospel. It is vital for Christians to understand why, and how, we are saved, and how it is even possible for us to be allowed into God’s holy presence. The first point is that it has nothing at all to do with our own goodness and everything to do with Christ’s.
Justification is a key word in the book Romans and it is repeated throughout Paul’s letter. Simply put, justification means “to pronounce righteous,” not to make righteous. There is an important difference here. We remain sinners – forgiven, yes - the stain of our sin remains, but now there is something different: The righteousness of Jesus is given or imputed to us, as He took our sin on Himself.
It means that as Christians we are viewed in Christ as righteous and are treated as such by God. It is the opposite of condemnation.
In Romans 3, Paul describes in great detail the depravity of our situation without God, as he quotes from various Old Testament texts: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
This is our great problem, and the death of Jesus on the cross is the great answer to that problem. Because of Jesus, we now have a righteousness or justification that we do not deserve, and cannot earn. It is only made possible by God’s grace. It is something which He has taken the initiative in providing, and in revealing to us.
In order to understand just why God has done all of this, we need to go back to the very reason for our existence: God created us to spend eternity with Him. Sin, however, has destroyed that purpose, and we are now faced with a problem we cannot fix. So God, through the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus, has provided a way for us to be justified before Him. The reason that God has done this is because He knows better than we do that without His grace, without His provision, we would be lost forever. We simply cannot earn His favour or His forgiveness. Nobody measures up to the mark of the perfection required to enter eternal life. This is why we need Jesus.
But what does justification actually do for us? Yes, we know that God now sees us just as if we’d never sinned, but there are many ways in which we are blessed as a result of justification.
In Romans 5 is a list of a number of these promises.
Justification provides peace with God. It also gives us access to God, something which is impossible for us in our sinful state. We are given a firm hope of the glory of God, and because we are justified by God, we are given the strength and courage to persevere through the tough times.
Justification also proves beyond any doubt the love which God has for us. Verse 5-8: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person - though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die - but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
We are also promised salvation from future wrath. Our eternal salvation is secure. Verses 9 and 10 deal with this: “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.”
Faith is another key word in Romans, and in chapter 4, Paul uses Abraham to illustrate this principle of justification by faith. Abraham was justified by faith, not by his works. If anyone could have been justified by works, it would have been Abraham. Paul makes an interesting but important point in verses 9 and 10 of Romans 4. “We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.”
Abraham was justified before he underwent the ritual of circumcision. What this means to us is that religious ceremonies and rituals cannot and do not justify. Doing good, coming to Church, praying regularly, all of these things do not justify us. They are merely legitimate responses to our justification – they are forms of worship.
Abraham’s justification was not by means of the law, and neither is ours. We are justified only by believing and putting our faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Faith in Him is only the means of our justification. It is Christ’s work on the cross that justifies, while faith is the channel.
Justification is not something done by us or even in us. It is what God has done for us in Christ, and the question each of us has to answer for ourselves, is this: Do I believe that by putting my faith and trust in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, God will forgive me and grant me the gift of eternal life? If you have answered yes to that question, then you are justified. You are now standing in a right relationship with God the Father, and He sees you just as if you had never sinned, not through anything you have done, but only through what His Son Jesus Christ did for you.
The doctrine of justification shows us, through faith in Jesus, how the requirements of the law can be satisfied. It’s about knowing the reality of peace with God in your life. “There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,” as Paul writes in Romans 8:1. The sin problem is our barrier between us and God, and there is only one way to deal with that problem: By putting our faith in Jesus, and trusting in what He has done for us.
No other religion or faith system does that, because they are all man-made religions that worship gods that are figments of human imagination. We often hear that all religions teach basically the same thing. No, they don’t.
The Christian faith and the Gospel of Christ stands quite alone in every key area, especially in the doctrine of justification by faith alone through grace alone, in Christ alone.
We are now able to stand before a holy God, and His righteous wrath has been satisfied, because Jesus took our punishment for us. Sin has been eternally punished by what Jesus did on the cross, and when He walked out of that tomb on the third day, victory was assured. Do you know Him? Do you know Jesus? Have you trusted in the only one who can stand between you and the wrath of a holy God? The work has already been done. The glory of salvation has already been accomplished. But before that salvation can be applied to you, you must first trust in the finished work of Jesus. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person - though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die - 8 but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Can a sinful human being be justified? Romans 3:24 says that we “are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
So the short answer to the question is yes, we can be justified, but just what is justification by faith, and how does it work? Job 9:2 asks, “How can a man be in the right before God?”
The doctrine of justification is at the heart of the Gospel. It is vital for Christians to understand why, and how, we are saved, and how it is even possible for us to be allowed into God’s holy presence. The first point is that it has nothing at all to do with our own goodness and everything to do with Christ’s.
Justification is a key word in the book Romans and it is repeated throughout Paul’s letter. Simply put, justification means “to pronounce righteous,” not to make righteous. There is an important difference here. We remain sinners – forgiven, yes - the stain of our sin remains, but now there is something different: The righteousness of Jesus is given or imputed to us, as He took our sin on Himself.
It means that as Christians we are viewed in Christ as righteous and are treated as such by God. It is the opposite of condemnation.
In Romans 3, Paul describes in great detail the depravity of our situation without God, as he quotes from various Old Testament texts: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
This is our great problem, and the death of Jesus on the cross is the great answer to that problem. Because of Jesus, we now have a righteousness or justification that we do not deserve, and cannot earn. It is only made possible by God’s grace. It is something which He has taken the initiative in providing, and in revealing to us.
In order to understand just why God has done all of this, we need to go back to the very reason for our existence: God created us to spend eternity with Him. Sin, however, has destroyed that purpose, and we are now faced with a problem we cannot fix. So God, through the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus, has provided a way for us to be justified before Him. The reason that God has done this is because He knows better than we do that without His grace, without His provision, we would be lost forever. We simply cannot earn His favour or His forgiveness. Nobody measures up to the mark of the perfection required to enter eternal life. This is why we need Jesus.
But what does justification actually do for us? Yes, we know that God now sees us just as if we’d never sinned, but there are many ways in which we are blessed as a result of justification.
In Romans 5 is a list of a number of these promises.
Justification provides peace with God. It also gives us access to God, something which is impossible for us in our sinful state. We are given a firm hope of the glory of God, and because we are justified by God, we are given the strength and courage to persevere through the tough times.
Justification also proves beyond any doubt the love which God has for us. Verse 5-8: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person - though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die - but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
We are also promised salvation from future wrath. Our eternal salvation is secure. Verses 9 and 10 deal with this: “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.”
Faith is another key word in Romans, and in chapter 4, Paul uses Abraham to illustrate this principle of justification by faith. Abraham was justified by faith, not by his works. If anyone could have been justified by works, it would have been Abraham. Paul makes an interesting but important point in verses 9 and 10 of Romans 4. “We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.”
Abraham was justified before he underwent the ritual of circumcision. What this means to us is that religious ceremonies and rituals cannot and do not justify. Doing good, coming to Church, praying regularly, all of these things do not justify us. They are merely legitimate responses to our justification – they are forms of worship.
Abraham’s justification was not by means of the law, and neither is ours. We are justified only by believing and putting our faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Faith in Him is only the means of our justification. It is Christ’s work on the cross that justifies, while faith is the channel.
Justification is not something done by us or even in us. It is what God has done for us in Christ, and the question each of us has to answer for ourselves, is this: Do I believe that by putting my faith and trust in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, God will forgive me and grant me the gift of eternal life? If you have answered yes to that question, then you are justified. You are now standing in a right relationship with God the Father, and He sees you just as if you had never sinned, not through anything you have done, but only through what His Son Jesus Christ did for you.
The doctrine of justification shows us, through faith in Jesus, how the requirements of the law can be satisfied. It’s about knowing the reality of peace with God in your life. “There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,” as Paul writes in Romans 8:1. The sin problem is our barrier between us and God, and there is only one way to deal with that problem: By putting our faith in Jesus, and trusting in what He has done for us.
No other religion or faith system does that, because they are all man-made religions that worship gods that are figments of human imagination. We often hear that all religions teach basically the same thing. No, they don’t.
The Christian faith and the Gospel of Christ stands quite alone in every key area, especially in the doctrine of justification by faith alone through grace alone, in Christ alone.
We are now able to stand before a holy God, and His righteous wrath has been satisfied, because Jesus took our punishment for us. Sin has been eternally punished by what Jesus did on the cross, and when He walked out of that tomb on the third day, victory was assured. Do you know Him? Do you know Jesus? Have you trusted in the only one who can stand between you and the wrath of a holy God? The work has already been done. The glory of salvation has already been accomplished. But before that salvation can be applied to you, you must first trust in the finished work of Jesus. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”