-7-
Peace with God
Romans 5
Romans 5:1 ¶ Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Peace with God. The Apostle Paul directs his words to us. He has been talking about the futility of trying to find right-standing with God on the basis of our being good people. He has talked about right-standing as being something that Abraham had with God … long before the commandments were given … therefor obeying the ten commandments does not bring right-standing with God. He points out that Abraham had right-standing with God years before he was circumcised. Therefor the Jewish ritual of circumcision was not necessary for his achieving right-standing with God. Paul underscores the one thing that does bring right-standing with God … and that is our faith … our putting our trust in Him and not in ourselves. It is recognizing that we are lost and condemned because of our sin, and our only hope is to turn to Him and cry, Help! I am a sinner, condemned and I need your forgiveness!
The fact that we all need to be brought into right-standing with God is based on the fact that we are all sinners. There will be more on this later, but for now let us take a careful look at verse 1.
So, based on faith alone … we are justified. God takes one last look at our sin, and then pronounces … he/she did not do it. It is gone.
We have peace with God. The word peace carries with it a number possible implications, but there is only one that really counts. For some, peace is equal to tranquility and quiet. Perhaps that connotation comes from a biblical like the one in Mr 4:39 - And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
Our English language can be the source of improper understanding of various biblical words. When Jesus said , “Peace! Be still!” he spoke the word 'siopio'. It means literally 'to be silent'.
The word 'peace' in verse 1 of Romans 5 is, 'eirene'. As you can see from the spelling, they are totally different words, but in our English Bibles they both come out as 'peace'.
In verse one the word 'peace' means:
Peace with God literally means 'the war is over between me and God'. What war? Let's look at a few scriptures that can shed some light on this.
Ps 7:11 God is a just judge, And God is angry with the wicked every day. (NKJV)
Jesus gives us a good picture in one of His parables:
Lu 14:31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
What Jesus is teaching in this parable is that, in this picture, He (God) is the the King who is coming to this earth with power far greater than ours. No matter how you might try to fight against Him, you will lose. You don't stand a chance of survival based upon your own merit or strength. Be wise and wave the white flag and shout, “I surrender!”
Ask for terms of peace. This time it is the same word as the one used in Romans 5:1. Because we have come to him in faith, have been justified by faith, we have peace with God. We are now on the same team.
And Paul reminds us again, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It only because of Jesus and his death, burial and resurrection that we can have this peace … that the anger of God against us is removed. We are no longer 'children of wrath' as we once were as Paul so clearly said it in. Eph 2:3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Ro 5:2 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.
This 'grace in which we stand' must be something wonderful. What is it? It is tied to the phrase, 'we rejoice in hope ...”
Let's try to picture it. We have been walking around under a dark storm cloud that is emitting lightning all around us. We were under the wrath of God. Then, through calling out to God for salvation, we now find ourselves at peace with God, standing on something that is called grace. Grace is the word χάρις charis khar’-ece
in the Bible, and it simply means …
1) grace
1a) that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness: grace of speech
2) good will, loving-kindness, favour
Notice a word that is missing. That is the word, 'unmerited' or 'undeserving'. There is certainly nothing wrong with adding it, but the word 'grace' itself, simply means favor.
We find ourselves standing upon his favor. Wow! Not only did he forgive us, put us on His team, but now we find ourselves favored! How incredible is that?
Ro 5:3a Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings,
Paul certainly endured a lot of suffering as he lived and ministered as a missionary preacher/church planter. But notice that he used the word 'our sufferings'. To be a Christian in Rome was a very difficult thing. Nearing the end of Paul's ministry he ends up in Rome and waits in a place of detainment until he can present his case to Caesar. Apparently he went to trial and then was released. At this point Nero became controller of Rome. He had a particular dislike for Christianity. Tradition has it that he wanted to rebuild the city of Rome, and to do so, he decided to burn the city and then rebuild it. But to burn the city would have made him some kind of criminal, so he had a way to conveniently blame the fire on the Christians. And in his mind he considered Paul to be the 'ring-leader' of the Christians, so he had him arrested and then executed.
Paul died before 70 AD. About 70 years later, a disciple by the name of Ignatius was imprisoned. He wrote this: [Christians] obey the established laws; indeed in their private lives they transcend the laws. They love everyone, and by everyone they are persecuted. They are unknown, yet they are condemned; they are put to death, yet they are brought to life. They are poor, yet they make many rich; they are in need of everything, yet they abound in everything. They are dishonored, yet they are glorified in their dishonor; they are slandered, yet they are vindicated. They are cursed, yet they bless; they are insulted, yet they offer respect. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when they are punished, they rejoice as though brought to life. By the Jews they are assaulted as foreigners, and by the Greeks they are persecuted, yet those who hate them are unable to give a reason for their hostility.
[Do you not see] how they are thrown to wild beasts to make them deny the Lord, and yet they are not conquered? Do you not see that as more of them are punished, the more others increase? These things do not look like human works; they are the power of God, they are proofs of his presence
Another man by the name of Justin Martyr witnessed these things first hand. He was non-Christian philosopher. But he became a believer as a result of seeing how Christians took punishment and death.
He wrote, to the Roman authorities:
“As a Christian philosopher, Justin makes clear to the Roman authorities that Christians do not seek persecution as a form of quasi-suicide, and indeed writes his apologies so that the Romans should bring their maltreatment of Christians to an end (which would go unheeded, as Justin himself is martyred around 165 A.D.). However, Justin also makes clear that he writes out of love for the persecutors themselves, so that they might escape the just judgment of God and be brought to life. For if the persecutors do not listen, Christians “reckon that no evil can be done to us, unless we be convicted as evil-doers or be proved to be wicked men; and you, you can kill, but not hurt us” (1 Apol. 2).
Paul was no stranger to suffering, and he goes so far as to say, … all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. 2Timothy 3:12
Here in verse 3 of this chapter in Romans Paul gives us reasons to rejoice when terrible things happen to us.
Ro 5:3b knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
From suffering … to endurance … to character … to hope
And then he says later in Romans:
Ro 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Heb 11:35b … others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.
And Paul said this to the Corinthians: … it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1Co 2:9
Hope is a wonderful thing. 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.
We have this incredible hope for one reason: God loves us! Do we need evidence of His love? Here it is.
Ro 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus died, took our sins upon himself, declared himself as guilty of our sin … so that we could go free. We are pardoned. We are looked at by God as if we had never sinned at all.
But what keeps us saved?
Ro 5:9 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.
Jesus is presently alive in heaven … and He keeps us alive in Him. There will be no 'wrath' to look forward to, Jesus will see to that.
Paul now moves on to show us how Jesus could reconcile us.
Ro 5:11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. 12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned — 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
These verses contain a 'ton' of truth. We will examine some of it.
A couple of chapters ago we considered the topic, 'Total Depravity'. Now I want to clarify and maybe modify what we might have assumed that the term means.
When Adam sinned, death was passed on to mankind. What kind of death? Physical? Spiritual? Both? For certain, physical death.
The bodies of Adam and Eve began to age. Cells began to die. Eternal life was gone. Suffering and pain would become a reality and eventually they themselves would die. All of this is contained in the verse:
Ge 2:17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
So physical death is now in the DNA. It is inherited. But what about Spiritual death? What is Spiritual death? Adam experienced spiritual death … immediately. It was not progressing. It was not something that would happen to him when he closed his eyes in physical death. It happened to him 'on the spot'. Just as in physical death there is a 'separation' of life from body, so in spiritual death there is a separation of our spirit and soul from God.
In Adam's case he felt it. He thought it was his nakedness that made him go and hide from God. And no doubt that was a great part of it. But Adam hid for another reason. He was ashamed of what he had done. His sin separated him from God.
And sin does that to us as well: Isa 59:2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that He will not hear. (KJV)
Adam lost his 'innocence' when he sinned. And now we read that results of Adam's sin have been passed on to us. But what results? For one, physical death. And for another, a sin nature. After birth, we WILL all sin. But we read that ...
sin is not counted where there is no law. So what does this mean? Does this have something to do with babies who are born with a mortal and dying body, but, as yet have no law…so sin is not counted? Or did babies 'inherit' guilt from Adam, and therefore they need to be baptized lest they die and go to hell? There will be more on this in chapter 7.
In verse 14 we read that the actual 'law' was not given until Moses, so what about the people before Moses? They had no law … so was sin not counted? Then why did God destroy mankind in the flood for 'sinfulness' if no law existed yet? This goes back to a previous chapter where Paul points out that as children grow up into reasoning adults, we discover the basic laws, we don't want to be killed, we don't want people stealing our stuff, when we are hurting, we appreciate kindness and sympathy … in other words, we all know the basic law that Jesus stated, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
So guilt did exist before Moses. And it exists now in parts of the world that lie in total ignorance and darkness. We all know better. So, as verse 14 states, our sin does not have to be the same one as Adam's for us to be guilty of sin.
Ro 5:15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
Here Paul wants to show a contrast. Man sinned … and EARNED death. Jesus died and gave us a FREE gift. Eternal death was EARNED, eternal life is NOT.
Ro 5:16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.
And here Paul contrasts condemnation with justification.
Are you familiar with the words of this hymn?
I stand amazed in the presence
Of Jesus the Nazarene,
And wonder how He could love me,
A sinner condemned, unclean.
He took my sins and my sorrows,
He made them His very own;
He bore the burden to Calv’ry,
And suffered, and died alone
CHORUS
How marvelous! How wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvelous! How wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!
And Paul continues his thoughts;
Ro 5:17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
As we come to the end of this chapter, Paul adds another marvelous thought:
Ro 5:20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
God wanted mankind to be aware of sin. More aware than what man knows intrinsically, or basically by nature. Why? So that He could point His finger at us to lay blame? No. He wants us to be aware of what we are doing when we sin, so that we can appreciate all the more what He is actually forgiving us for.
Paul refers to sin as 'reigning' over us. But then he says, Grace now reigns. Peace with God!
How marvelous! How wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvelous! How wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!
So, should we start sinning more than ever … just so that we can REALLY appreciate God's grace?
Chapter 6 will give some insight.
Peace with God. The Apostle Paul directs his words to us. He has been talking about the futility of trying to find right-standing with God on the basis of our being good people. He has talked about right-standing as being something that Abraham had with God … long before the commandments were given … therefor obeying the ten commandments does not bring right-standing with God. He points out that Abraham had right-standing with God years before he was circumcised. Therefor the Jewish ritual of circumcision was not necessary for his achieving right-standing with God. Paul underscores the one thing that does bring right-standing with God … and that is our faith … our putting our trust in Him and not in ourselves. It is recognizing that we are lost and condemned because of our sin, and our only hope is to turn to Him and cry, Help! I am a sinner, condemned and I need your forgiveness!
The fact that we all need to be brought into right-standing with God is based on the fact that we are all sinners. There will be more on this later, but for now let us take a careful look at verse 1.
So, based on faith alone … we are justified. God takes one last look at our sin, and then pronounces … he/she did not do it. It is gone.
We have peace with God. The word peace carries with it a number possible implications, but there is only one that really counts. For some, peace is equal to tranquility and quiet. Perhaps that connotation comes from a biblical like the one in Mr 4:39 - And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
Our English language can be the source of improper understanding of various biblical words. When Jesus said , “Peace! Be still!” he spoke the word 'siopio'. It means literally 'to be silent'.
The word 'peace' in verse 1 of Romans 5 is, 'eirene'. As you can see from the spelling, they are totally different words, but in our English Bibles they both come out as 'peace'.
In verse one the word 'peace' means:
- a state of national tranquility
1a) exemption from the rage and havoc of war
Peace with God literally means 'the war is over between me and God'. What war? Let's look at a few scriptures that can shed some light on this.
Ps 7:11 God is a just judge, And God is angry with the wicked every day. (NKJV)
Jesus gives us a good picture in one of His parables:
Lu 14:31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
What Jesus is teaching in this parable is that, in this picture, He (God) is the the King who is coming to this earth with power far greater than ours. No matter how you might try to fight against Him, you will lose. You don't stand a chance of survival based upon your own merit or strength. Be wise and wave the white flag and shout, “I surrender!”
Ask for terms of peace. This time it is the same word as the one used in Romans 5:1. Because we have come to him in faith, have been justified by faith, we have peace with God. We are now on the same team.
And Paul reminds us again, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It only because of Jesus and his death, burial and resurrection that we can have this peace … that the anger of God against us is removed. We are no longer 'children of wrath' as we once were as Paul so clearly said it in. Eph 2:3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Ro 5:2 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.
This 'grace in which we stand' must be something wonderful. What is it? It is tied to the phrase, 'we rejoice in hope ...”
Let's try to picture it. We have been walking around under a dark storm cloud that is emitting lightning all around us. We were under the wrath of God. Then, through calling out to God for salvation, we now find ourselves at peace with God, standing on something that is called grace. Grace is the word χάρις charis khar’-ece
in the Bible, and it simply means …
1) grace
1a) that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness: grace of speech
2) good will, loving-kindness, favour
Notice a word that is missing. That is the word, 'unmerited' or 'undeserving'. There is certainly nothing wrong with adding it, but the word 'grace' itself, simply means favor.
We find ourselves standing upon his favor. Wow! Not only did he forgive us, put us on His team, but now we find ourselves favored! How incredible is that?
Ro 5:3a Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings,
Paul certainly endured a lot of suffering as he lived and ministered as a missionary preacher/church planter. But notice that he used the word 'our sufferings'. To be a Christian in Rome was a very difficult thing. Nearing the end of Paul's ministry he ends up in Rome and waits in a place of detainment until he can present his case to Caesar. Apparently he went to trial and then was released. At this point Nero became controller of Rome. He had a particular dislike for Christianity. Tradition has it that he wanted to rebuild the city of Rome, and to do so, he decided to burn the city and then rebuild it. But to burn the city would have made him some kind of criminal, so he had a way to conveniently blame the fire on the Christians. And in his mind he considered Paul to be the 'ring-leader' of the Christians, so he had him arrested and then executed.
Paul died before 70 AD. About 70 years later, a disciple by the name of Ignatius was imprisoned. He wrote this: [Christians] obey the established laws; indeed in their private lives they transcend the laws. They love everyone, and by everyone they are persecuted. They are unknown, yet they are condemned; they are put to death, yet they are brought to life. They are poor, yet they make many rich; they are in need of everything, yet they abound in everything. They are dishonored, yet they are glorified in their dishonor; they are slandered, yet they are vindicated. They are cursed, yet they bless; they are insulted, yet they offer respect. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when they are punished, they rejoice as though brought to life. By the Jews they are assaulted as foreigners, and by the Greeks they are persecuted, yet those who hate them are unable to give a reason for their hostility.
[Do you not see] how they are thrown to wild beasts to make them deny the Lord, and yet they are not conquered? Do you not see that as more of them are punished, the more others increase? These things do not look like human works; they are the power of God, they are proofs of his presence
Another man by the name of Justin Martyr witnessed these things first hand. He was non-Christian philosopher. But he became a believer as a result of seeing how Christians took punishment and death.
He wrote, to the Roman authorities:
“As a Christian philosopher, Justin makes clear to the Roman authorities that Christians do not seek persecution as a form of quasi-suicide, and indeed writes his apologies so that the Romans should bring their maltreatment of Christians to an end (which would go unheeded, as Justin himself is martyred around 165 A.D.). However, Justin also makes clear that he writes out of love for the persecutors themselves, so that they might escape the just judgment of God and be brought to life. For if the persecutors do not listen, Christians “reckon that no evil can be done to us, unless we be convicted as evil-doers or be proved to be wicked men; and you, you can kill, but not hurt us” (1 Apol. 2).
Paul was no stranger to suffering, and he goes so far as to say, … all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. 2Timothy 3:12
Here in verse 3 of this chapter in Romans Paul gives us reasons to rejoice when terrible things happen to us.
Ro 5:3b knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
From suffering … to endurance … to character … to hope
And then he says later in Romans:
Ro 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Heb 11:35b … others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.
And Paul said this to the Corinthians: … it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1Co 2:9
Hope is a wonderful thing. 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.
We have this incredible hope for one reason: God loves us! Do we need evidence of His love? Here it is.
Ro 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus died, took our sins upon himself, declared himself as guilty of our sin … so that we could go free. We are pardoned. We are looked at by God as if we had never sinned at all.
But what keeps us saved?
Ro 5:9 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.
Jesus is presently alive in heaven … and He keeps us alive in Him. There will be no 'wrath' to look forward to, Jesus will see to that.
Paul now moves on to show us how Jesus could reconcile us.
Ro 5:11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. 12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned — 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
These verses contain a 'ton' of truth. We will examine some of it.
A couple of chapters ago we considered the topic, 'Total Depravity'. Now I want to clarify and maybe modify what we might have assumed that the term means.
When Adam sinned, death was passed on to mankind. What kind of death? Physical? Spiritual? Both? For certain, physical death.
The bodies of Adam and Eve began to age. Cells began to die. Eternal life was gone. Suffering and pain would become a reality and eventually they themselves would die. All of this is contained in the verse:
Ge 2:17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
So physical death is now in the DNA. It is inherited. But what about Spiritual death? What is Spiritual death? Adam experienced spiritual death … immediately. It was not progressing. It was not something that would happen to him when he closed his eyes in physical death. It happened to him 'on the spot'. Just as in physical death there is a 'separation' of life from body, so in spiritual death there is a separation of our spirit and soul from God.
In Adam's case he felt it. He thought it was his nakedness that made him go and hide from God. And no doubt that was a great part of it. But Adam hid for another reason. He was ashamed of what he had done. His sin separated him from God.
And sin does that to us as well: Isa 59:2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that He will not hear. (KJV)
Adam lost his 'innocence' when he sinned. And now we read that results of Adam's sin have been passed on to us. But what results? For one, physical death. And for another, a sin nature. After birth, we WILL all sin. But we read that ...
sin is not counted where there is no law. So what does this mean? Does this have something to do with babies who are born with a mortal and dying body, but, as yet have no law…so sin is not counted? Or did babies 'inherit' guilt from Adam, and therefore they need to be baptized lest they die and go to hell? There will be more on this in chapter 7.
In verse 14 we read that the actual 'law' was not given until Moses, so what about the people before Moses? They had no law … so was sin not counted? Then why did God destroy mankind in the flood for 'sinfulness' if no law existed yet? This goes back to a previous chapter where Paul points out that as children grow up into reasoning adults, we discover the basic laws, we don't want to be killed, we don't want people stealing our stuff, when we are hurting, we appreciate kindness and sympathy … in other words, we all know the basic law that Jesus stated, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
So guilt did exist before Moses. And it exists now in parts of the world that lie in total ignorance and darkness. We all know better. So, as verse 14 states, our sin does not have to be the same one as Adam's for us to be guilty of sin.
Ro 5:15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
Here Paul wants to show a contrast. Man sinned … and EARNED death. Jesus died and gave us a FREE gift. Eternal death was EARNED, eternal life is NOT.
Ro 5:16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.
And here Paul contrasts condemnation with justification.
Are you familiar with the words of this hymn?
I stand amazed in the presence
Of Jesus the Nazarene,
And wonder how He could love me,
A sinner condemned, unclean.
He took my sins and my sorrows,
He made them His very own;
He bore the burden to Calv’ry,
And suffered, and died alone
CHORUS
How marvelous! How wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvelous! How wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!
And Paul continues his thoughts;
Ro 5:17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
As we come to the end of this chapter, Paul adds another marvelous thought:
Ro 5:20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
God wanted mankind to be aware of sin. More aware than what man knows intrinsically, or basically by nature. Why? So that He could point His finger at us to lay blame? No. He wants us to be aware of what we are doing when we sin, so that we can appreciate all the more what He is actually forgiving us for.
Paul refers to sin as 'reigning' over us. But then he says, Grace now reigns. Peace with God!
How marvelous! How wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvelous! How wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!
So, should we start sinning more than ever … just so that we can REALLY appreciate God's grace?
Chapter 6 will give some insight.