Did you catch the note of joy in the passage we just heard read? Paul invites us to rejoice – rather, to exult! – in what God has done for us. Here he summarises all he’s been saying in the previous four chapters – and now he draws out some of the great implications of his message. It’s as if he’s been steadily leading us up a great mountainside to a pass, where he pauses and bids us look back the way he has brought us – and then turns us round, so we can look forward to a view that has been hidden until this moment.

Paul is writing to a Christian community he has neither founded nor visited. After introducing himself as one set apart for the gospel (1:1), Paul tells them how committed to it he is. I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes:… For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last… (1:16,17) Paul then launches into his theme, by explaining man’s great need of the gospel, the good news he brings from God.

Peril outside of Christ

Let me tell you a story. Long ago, a traveller on horseback arrived, in the middle of the night, at an inn on the shores of Lake Constance in Switzerland. He told the inn-keeper that he’d lost his way during a great snow-storm. The inn-keeper was astonished, because all the roads had been impassable for days. The man must have ridden – not along the road – but over the frozen lake. At that the man blanched and collapsed in horror – at the thought of how near death he’d been, as his horse’s hooves had pounded, not the road, but the thin ice on the lake.

A true understanding of the gospel can produce a similar reaction in the Christian. He realises how near he was to being lost in his blind passage across the ice of his own efforts, in his attempt to please God. In the warmth, light and safety of his place of refuge in Christ, he realises how nearly lost he was. As a result he takes fresh heart and goes on a saved man – a chastened man, but a believing, justified and joyful man.

Can we come to that perspective today – and be sure of the way God puts us right with him? For there is a very real sense in which we too need to understand the peril of the man or woman who has not yet found refuge in Christ. Like Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50) we shall receive Christ coldly – in comparison to the prostitute who wept as his feet – if we’ve little idea of our indebtedness. We too need to stand with the tax-collector (Luke 18:9-14) and cry, God, have mercy on me, a sinner! Only then can we know the joy of God’s rescue, or have any hunger to share that knowledge with others.

What happens now when we do anything wrong? Do I say to myself, I’ve failed again. I’ve let myself down. I’m ashamed of myself. Why did I hurt others and make myself miserable and unhappy? If that is as far as I get – then I’ve not yet viewed my sin as the Bible teaches me to. I’ve good cause to say those words to you, for in the last fortnight, I’ve discovered how thoughtless words of mine caused someone anger and deep distress. That renewed, as it needed to, an awareness of my own sinfulness, and need of God’s forgiveness.

What is sin?

What is sin? We know that Jesus taught that it is more than specific acts which break God’s laws. It is something in our hearts which betrays itself in our thoughts and attitudes. (Mk 7:20-23; Mt 5:22,27) Hate, as well as murder, breaks the sixth commandment, and lust, as well as adultery, breaks the seventh. What goes on in our hearts reveals our true nature. We are basically self-centred. We have enthroned self, where God should reign. Our failure – and especially our not wanting to obey God’s laws – shows us that our natural disposition is one of refusal and rebellion.

Paul brings this out by saying that the creation reveals God’s existence and power – but men refuse to worship him and give him thanks. And as men become godless – so they become wicked – and the world is filled with evil. But the religious man or woman is without excuse also. Do we say God is our Lord? Do we agree that God’s laws are for our good? That they express God’s holy character? Very well, but we fail to keep them. In God’s sight there is no-one righteous.

The Pharisee of Paul’s day – and he’d been one himself – boasted of his religious respectability, his privileged position with God. He believed he could keep the law and be pleasing to God. But Paul discovered he could not. It had been brought home to him when he realised the implications of, You shall not covet.(7:7-12) The Law, said Paul, was given to make us realise that we are sinners. It is no highway, no staircase, to heaven. It should leave us dumb-founded – silent before a holy God. No-one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by observing the law. (3:20)

When we do wrong we miss the mark entirely, if we only know regret or remorse – for these are self-centred responses. Supremely we have offended God and are answerable to him.(Psa 51:4; Ezk 18:31) Let me put it this way: When your library book is overdue – you take it back and pay a fine. You broke the rules, and the fine is your expiation of your fault. But when you borrow someone’s car and then wreck it – there is more than the damage to put right. You have offended the owner, and it may not be sufficient just to pay for the damage. There’s a personal relationship to be repaired. Propitiation is required.

Scripture speaks often of God’s wrath and anger.(1:18) Because human anger is so often capricious and vindictive – many find it impossible to believe that God can be angry. But God tells us that his anger is not like that. He is slow to anger and very long-suffering.(Ex 34:6) But, because he is utterly holy and righteous (Isa 5:16; Hab 1:13; 1 Jn 1:5) – he cannot overlook our disobedience. The human judge, who acquits the guilty and perverts justice, is an abomination in God’s sight. God is a righteous judge – and everyone of us is accountable to him. He does not wink at evil and he will not when he judges the hearts of men. His wrath is his holy reaction – his righteous indignation – to all that is sinful and vile in his world.

The trouble for many of us is that we remain utterly unconscious of God’s disapproval. While the world goes well for us, and the sun shines, we do not see our nakedness and filthiness in the sight of a holy and pure God. None of us is yet standing before his judgement throne. But the Holy Spirit of God can open our eyes and reveal the abyss at our feet.

Like Isaiah in the temple (Isa 6:5) – like Peter in the boat with Jesus (Lk 5:8) – or Paul on the Damascus road (Acts 9:5). Then we see all our good deeds and religious endeavours as filthy rags. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (3:23) We were created in God’s image. But we no longer reflect God’s glory. Indeed, we don’t even see it. We are cut off and alienated from God. As a result, we are alienated also from one another, and there is disharmony even within ourselves.

The Good News of what God has done for us

When we’ve reached this realisation – then we’re ready to hear and receive the gospel. It’s good news past our imagining. So good the world cannot believe it. So good, but so humbling to human pride, so destructive of our self-centredness and independence. For it is God alone who can save us from his own just condemnation. The wonder of it all is that God has propitiated himself for our sake. (3:25; 1 Jn 2:2, 4:10) God the Father presented his only Son, Christ Jesus, as a sacrifice that would avert his wrath from us. The New Testament writers – Paul among them – are quite explicit about this, referring often to Christ’s blood, by which they mean his death on our behalf.

They are pointing back to the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, which stated, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins (Lev 17:11; Heb 9:22). It required the death of the sacrifice to ransom the life of the sinner. And it required the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, to save us. He suffered in our place, the penalty which our sins deserve. (Isa 53:5,6) In a way past our understanding, God himself upheld his own righteous requirement – to make it possible for him to forgive us.

And now he offers this to us. A complete acquittal from the condemnation our sins deserve. For the word justify means just that – and more. It is the verdict of the judge that pronounces the prisoner not guilty, and allows him to go free. How can God do that – and still be just? Because God himself, in Christ, has paid the penalty. He has taken our guilt upon himself – and given us, in exchange, his own righteousness! (2 Cor 5:21) This is no legal fiction, as some assert, but utter reality for those thus set free. It is the verdict of the Day of Judgement brought into the present, for those God acquits, those he justifies, right now! (Rom 4:5-8; 1 Cor 6:11)

What is faith?

There is just one condition that must be satisfied if I am to receive this justification, this acquittal. I can receive it only by faith. What is faith? It is complete trust in Jesus, an unreserved commitment to him, for time and eternity. I’m told that, if you should ever find yourself on the open plains of Canada, with a strong wind driving a prairie-fire towards you – there is one thing you can do. You should light a fire at your feet, and allow the wind to carry it away from you. Then stand on the burnt ground, as you begin to be enveloped by the might of the prairie-fire. Christ’s death for me is that burnt ground, in the face of God’s judgement – and I shall be safe.

In fact, I can bring nothing of my own, to add to what God has already done for me in Christ. If I could, I could boast about it. But boasting is utterly excluded. (3:27,28) It is all God’s doing – his initiative, from start to finish. What is faith? It is the empty, open-handed receiving of a gift. A gift utterly undeserved and unmerited. But it is a gift I must appropriate for myself.

You may believe I’m perfectly capable of driving you in my car to some lovely destination – let’s say, the Côte d’Azur! You may believe I’m a safe driver who could take you to that destination. But that’s not enough! You must first believe I’ve invited you to come with me! And you must want to go to the Côte d’Azur – and recognise your own utter inability of getting there by your own efforts. Indeed, if you try to do that, when I’ve invited you, you will only insult my offer! But as yet, none of this amounts to your actually trusting me! Not until you’ve accepted my offer and sat in the car, ready to leave Grenoble completely behind.

So I must abandon all attempts to save myself in any way – and just cast myself on God’s mercy, by asking him to accept me because of what he has already done for me in Christ. I can do that by thanking Jesus and asking him to be my Lord and Saviour. From that very moment God counts me as righteous, for he looks not on me as I am, or even on me as he will make me, but he looks on Jesus, the unspotted Lamb of God, who took away my sin. (Heb 9:24-28; 10:10,14,17)

The consequences of having been justified by faith

Now, I hope, we can appreciate the view back from the place where Paul has brought us. And we can appreciate the vista which opens up before us. Since we have been justified through faith, Paul writes, 1. we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. There can be no peace between us and God while we remain unforgiven. On our side there may be fear and hostility. But, as we’ve seen, God has more cause to reject us – because in his holy character, he cannot overlook our sin. So peace with God is our very first need, without which we can know no blessing of peace within ourselves. And it is through our Lord Jesus Christ alone, as Paul is never tired of reminding us!

But when we were still helpless, Christ died for the godless… God demonstrated his own love for us.. while we were still sinners, Christ died for us… while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son. (5:6,8,10) No wonder Paul speaks elsewhere of God as the God of peace (1 Thess 5:23).. making peace through (Christ’s) blood, shed on the cross (Col 1:20). Or that Paul speaks of Christians as those who have received the gift of reconciliation! (5:11)

Can I take you back to that first story I told – of the traveller who crossed the frozen lake on horse-back? Do you see now what our peril is? And do you see how, in the warmth and safety of the acceptance God offers us in Christ, we may rejoice in his extraordinary mercy and deliverance? And, more than that – how we may now be certain of our salvation to all eternity?

For Paul wants us to have that certain hope – and spends the next three and a half chapters demonstrating its truth, so that we may have that assurance! Immediately he tells us of further benefits of being justified by faith, so we may examine ourselves and see if our trust is genuine, and our joy is well-founded!

For the peace that Christ gives us is more than the end of hostility, it is a deep peace of well-being, God’s shalom, because we are brought into a relationship with God of undeserved favour. Jesus Christ has introduced us into this grace in which we now stand. 2. We stand firmly in the place of all blessing! We have access into our Father’s presence, as his beloved children. Henceforward, we can bring to him our prayers and requests and know that he will hear and answer us, for the sake of Jesus, our Lord and Saviour. (8:32; Heb 4:16; 1 Jn 5:13,14)

Having been justified by faith, 3. we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Yes, we shall see God’s glory. But just as wonderful – we ourselves will be transformed, and share in his glory.. Because of our sin we fall short of this, and no longer reflect God’s character as he intends we shall! But now God holds before us this prospect – that we shall be conformed to the likeness of his Son – who perfectly reflects God’s character – so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers… those he justified, he also glorified. (8:29-30) Even our physical bodies are to become like Christ’s resurrected body, beautiful and glorious. (1 Cor 15:42-44,49) Should we not exult in this certain hope? No one else has such a hope!

Paul goes on to further benefits – the possession of which gives us further proof of our salvation – but to expound these goes beyond our allotted time! But they are real – this God-given ability to rejoice even in suffering – and the experience of God’s love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom God has given us! So let’s be sure we’ve trusted in Christ, committed ourselves to him forever – and exult in God’s grace and love!