A look at Justification, Romans 5 The Voice

Romans 5The Voice (VOICE)

In God’s plan to restore a fallen and disfigured world, Abraham became the father of all of us, the agent of blessing to everyone. Jesus completes what God started centuries before when He established Abraham’s covenant family. Those who put faith in Jesus and call Him “Lord” become part of Abraham’s faith family. Because God is gracious, loving, and merciful, men and women from every corner of the earth are not only declared right, but ultimately are made right as well. It happens through God’s actions—not our efforts—in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus who was crucified for our misdeeds and raised to repair what has been wrong all along. So the promises of God made long years ago are being realized in men and women who hear the call of faith and answer “yes” to it.

5 Since we have been acquitted and made right through faith, we are able to experience true and lasting peace with God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Liberating King. 2 Jesus leads us into a place of radical grace where we are able to celebrate the hope of experiencing God’s glory. 3 And that’s not all. We also celebrate in seasons of suffering because we know that when we suffer we develop endurance, 4 which shapes our characters. When our characters are refined, we learn what it means to hope and anticipate God’s goodness. 5 And hope will never fail to satisfy our deepest need because the Holy Spirit that was given to us has flooded our hearts with God’s love. See below:

6 When the time was right, the Anointed One died for all of us who were far from God, powerless, and weak. 7 Now it is rare to find someone willing to die for an upright person, although it’s possible that someone may give up his life for one who is truly good. 8 But think about this: while we were wasting our lives in sin, God revealed His powerful love to us in a tangible display—the Anointed One died for us. 9 As a result, the blood of Jesus has made us right with God now, and certainly we will be rescued by Him from God’s wrath in the future. 10 If we were in the heat of combat with God when His Son reconciled us by laying down His life, then how much more will we be saved by Jesus’ resurrection life? 11 In fact, we stand now reconciled and at peace with God. That’s why we celebrate in God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed.

12 Consider this: sin entered our world through one man, Adam; and through sin, death followed in hot pursuit. Death spread rapidly to infect all people on the earth as they engaged in sin.

God’s gift of grace and salvation is amazing. Paul struggles to find the words to describe it. He looks everywhere around him to find a metaphor, an image, a word to put into language one aspect of this awesome gift. One of those is “reconciliation.” There is hardly anything more beautiful than to see two people who have been enemies or estranged or separated coming back together. When Paul reflects on what God has done through Jesus, he thinks about reconciliation. Before we receive God’s blessing through His Son, we are enemies of God, sinners of the worst sort. But God makes the first move to restore us to a right relationship with Him.

13 Before God gave the law, sin existed, but there was no way to account for it. Outside the law, how could anyone be charged and found guilty of sin? 14 Still, death plagued all humanity from Adam to Moses, even those whose sin was of a different sort than Adam’s. You see, in God’s plan, Adam was a prototype of the One who comes to usher in a new day. 15 But the free gift of grace bears no resemblance to Adam’s crime that brings a death sentence to all of humanity; in fact, it is quite the opposite. For if the one man’s sin brings death to so many, how much more does the gift of God’s radical grace extend to humanity since Jesus the Anointed offered His generous gift. 16 His free gift is nothing like the scourge of the first man’s sin. The judgment that fell because of one false step brought condemnation, but the free gift following countless offenses results in a favourable verdict—not guilty. 17 If one man’s sin brought a reign of death—that’s Adam’s legacy—how much more will those who receive grace in abundance and the free gift of redeeming justice reign in life by means of one other man—Jesus the Anointed.

18 So here is the result: as one man’s sin brought about condemnation and punishment for all people, so one man’s act of faithfulness makes all of us right with God and brings us to new life. 19 Just as through one man’s defiant disobedience every one of us were made sinners, so through the willing obedience of the one man many of us will be made right.

20 When the law came into the picture, sin grew and grew; but wherever sin grew and spread, God’s grace was there in fuller, greater measure. No matter how much sin crept in, there was always more grace. 21 In the same way that sin reigned in the sphere of death, now grace reigns through God’s restorative justice, eclipsing death and leading to eternal life through the Anointed One, Jesus our Lord, the Liberating King.

NIV Application Commentary

We Hope Because God Loves Us in Christ (5:5–8)

Our claim that Christ will rescue us from God’s wrath will some day be vindicated. God will do what he promised.

How can we be sure? In Romans 5:5b–10, Paul gives two basic reasons: God’s love for us in Christ (vv. 5b–8) and God’s work for us in Christ (vv. 9–10). God does not mete out his love for us in tiny measures; he “has poured” (ekcheo) it into our hearts. This verb is used to describe the “pouring out” of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17–18). Paul therefore cleverly alludes to the Spirit here. It is the Spirit, dwelling in the heart of believers, who communicates God’s love to us (cf. Rom. 5:5). Paul says much more about this ministry of the Holy Spirit and about God’s love for us in chapter 8.

Alongside this subjective evidence of God’s love, we also have objective proof of that love in the cross of Christ. At the time God determined, at just the right point in salvation history, “Christ died for the ungodly” (v. 6; cf. also, for this sense of time, 3:26; 8:18; 13:11). Sending his Son to die for people who refused to worship him (the basic connotation of “ungodly”) reveals the magnitude of God’s love for us.

To make sure we do not miss this point, Paul reinforces it in verse 7 with an analogy: “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.” Though the issue is disputed, a difference between “a good man” and “a righteous man” seems to be the key to the interpretation. A “righteous” person is one we might respect, but a “good” person is one we might love. Rarely will a person give his or her life for someone they merely respect; but occasionally a person dies for the sake of someone they love—a soldier for his buddies, a parent for her children. The awesome quality of God’s love for us is seen in that Christ died for us while we were “still sinners”—hating God, in rebellion against him (v. 8).

The Bible Panorama

Romans 5

V 1–5: RESULTS The immediate results of being justified by faith are peace with God through Christ, access by faith into His grace, and rejoicing in the hope of God’s glory. But even tribulations bring their character-shaping blessings for those who are justified. This is especially so because of God’s pouring His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit

. V 6–8: REMARKABLE! The demonstration of God’s own love for us, in dying for us ‘while we were still sinners’, is remarkable. Very occasionally someone will give his life for a good man, but Christ gave His life for us while we were hopeless and weak rebel sinners.

 V 9–11: RECONCILED There is a double reconciliation to God. Because of our justification through His blood we shall be saved from wrath through Him: His death has reconciled us. But now, having been justified through that blood, we find that we are reconciled through His saving life in that, each day, we seek to live reconciled lives through His strength, presence and power. This causes us to rejoice because we have received this reconciliation. 

V 12–17: REIGN Death reigned over humanity since man’s fall in sin. But now the gift of righteousness reigns through God’s abundance of grace to those who are justified through Christ and freed from the condemnation deserved. Thus the sin that spread and led to death need no longer reign in the life of those who are justified and who have received His righteousness. 

V 18–21: RIGHTEOUSNESS The law shows sin abounding, but God’s grace has abounded much more producing eternal life through Christ our Lord. Through one man, Adam, sin and judgement came upon all. Through another Man, Jesus Christ, and His righteous act in dying on the cross for us, many are ‘made righteous’, which is what justification means.

Warren Wiersbe BE Bible Study Series

1. The Blessings of Our Justification (5:1-11)

In listing these blessings, Paul accomplished two purposes. First, he told how wonderful it is to be a Christian. Our justification is not simply a guarantee of heaven, as thrilling as that is, but it is also the source of tremendous blessings that we enjoy here and now.

His second purpose was to assure his readers that justification is a lasting thing. His Jewish readers in particular would ask, “Can this spiritual experience last if it does not require obedience to the law? What about the trials and sufferings of life? What about the coming judgment?” When God declared us righteous in Jesus Christ, He gave to us seven spiritual blessings that assure us that we cannot be lost.

(4) Christian character (vv. 3-4). Justification is no escape from the trials of life. “In the world ye shall have tribulation” (John 16:33). But for the believer, trials work for him and not against him. No amount of suffering can separate us from the Lord (Rom. 8:35-39); instead, trials bring us closer to the Lord and make us more like the Lord. Suffering builds Christian character. The word experience in Romans 5:4 means “character that has been proved.” The sequence is tribulation–patience–proven character–hope. Our English word tribulation comes from a Latin word tribulum. In Paul’s day, a tribulum was a heavy piece of timber with spikes in it, used for threshing the grain. The tribulum was drawn over the grain and it separated the wheat from the chaff. As we go through tribulations, and depend on God’s grace, the trials only purify us and help to get rid of the chaff.

(5) God’s love within (vv. 5-8). “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick” (Prov. 13:12). But as we wait for this hope to be fulfilled, the love of God is “poured out into our hearts” (literal translation). Note how the first three of the “fruit of the Spirit” are experienced: love (Rom. 5:5), joy (Rom. 5:2), and peace (Rom. 5:1). Before we were saved, God proved His love by sending Christ to die for us. Now that we are His children, surely He will love us more. It is the inner experience of this love through the Spirit that sustains us as we go through tribulations.

Faith (Rom. 5:1), hope (Rom. 5:2), and love (Rom. 5:5) all combine to give the believer patience in the trials of life. And patience makes it possible for the believer to grow in character and become a mature child of God (James 1:1-4).

Dictionary of Bible Themes

6678 justification, and Jesus Christ’s work

On account of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the demands of the law of God are met, and believers are granted the status of being righteous in the sight of God.

Justification is grounded in the death of Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ’s death shields believers from God’s wrath Ro 5:9 See also Ro 3:24; Ro 4:25; Ro 5:18; 1Pe 2:24
Jesus Christ’s death fulfils the demands of the law of God Ro 8:3-4 See also Ro 3:25-26; Gal 3:13; 1Jn 2:2

Justification is grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ

Ro 4:25; Ro 10:9-10 See also Ac 2:22-39; Ac 4:10-12; Ac 17:30-31; 1Pe 3:18-21

Justification means believers are reckoned as righteous through the death of Jesus Christ

Ro 5:19; 1Co 1:30; 2Co 5:21 See also 1Co 6:9-11; Php 3:8-9 The term “imputation” is used to refer to the process by which God treats believers as being righteous in his sight on account of Jesus Christ’s death.

Justification is received by faith

Ro 1:17 pp Gal 3:11 See also Hab 2:4; Ro 5:1; Eph 2:8
The example of Abraham Ge 15:6 See also Ro 4:1-5,9-22; Gal 3:6-9,16-18
The example of David Ro 4:6-8; Ps 32:1-2
Apostolic teaching on the need of faith for justification Ac 13:39 See also Ro 3:22,25,27-30; Ro 4:5; Ro 5:1; Ro 9:30-32; Ro 10:10; 1Co 6:11; Gal 2:16; Gal 3:8,14; Eph 2:8

Justification is a gift of God’s grace
Ro 3:24 See also Ro 5:15-17; Ro 8:33; Tit 3:7

Not by works or the law Gal 3:11 See also Ro 3:20; Ro 4:5; Gal 2:16,21; Gal 3:2-5,24; Gal 5:4-6; Eph 2:8-9



Yours by His Grace

Blair Humphreys

Southport,  Merseyside